Farm Update

In typical Kim and Lucy House fashion, we have changed the plan! After finishing the free range pig business, we fully intended to go on a long road trip/holiday. We got as far as Canberra to visit the grandchild and then came home. Why....many reasons and too numerous to try and make sense of, but nevertheless, we came back to Baralaba and haven't left. Our life is a little complicated and the main reason for this is, that we actually don't "live" on our property Anabank anymore. I'm not going into the reason for this on this post, basically I feel I need to mention this as it makes it easier to talk about our farm life if you dear reader are aware of that fact. We continue to run cattle, goats and sheep (and a few other odds and ends) on the property and I had originally thought I wouldn't be able to keep a garden going, but I am going to give it a red hot try. Not living on the property was one of the reasons that we had planned on being away for so long, but things changed and at the moment we're staying put. We live on another property near by and just come over to Anabank to work the farm.

When we got back from our trip, which is only a bit more than a month ago, I immediately planted some things into the garden - not even knowing whether I would be around to harvest them. Since then I've gradually added a few more seedlings and have even planted some seeds into seedling pots while I continue to work on getting some ground ready to plant. It's been incredible to note how many seedlings are surviving, as my usual death rate is pretty high. Amazing what having the time to water often makes to the chances of survival. My usual, is to plant seedlings and then remember to water them a few days later!

Tomato plants, one starting to flower. Tomato seedling's planted a month ago and garlic coming up after planting a week ago. I thought it was too late for garlic, but I've got heaps and it's all shooting, so I thought I'd give it a go - I can always cut them as garlic leaks if it warms up too much for them to form heads.

Silverbeet and spinach seedlings planted a week ago and all still alive.

I've been doing some tidying up and planting out some plants that we'd had in pots as that was going to be easier to keep alive while we were away. We also found 4 banana suckers that needed to come off the main trunk as it's got a bunch on it and 2 other palms (?) that are too big to remove. We've planted these around the drain from the laundry and kitchen, although that doesn't see a lot of water these days, but it's a trench that we can fill when needed to keep them well watered.

Once the banana bunch stops forming, it's time to cut the flower off. I thought about cooking with it and I might, but there's a far bit of work involved in making it edible and I'm not really sure I'm that invested in the idea. It's not wasted if the chooks eat it, is it?

This bed had about 5 purple snake bean plants self seeded, so I've just tidied it up a bit and then decided to leave it unmulched until we see if anything else comes up - I think I see some little pansies. I also planted out Sam's pineapple and a galangal that have been in pots for ages.

The Farm

When we finished with the pigs, we pulled out their electric fencing, but still have quite a few ringlock paddocks, which we keep the sheep and the goats in. We did get rid of a lot of goats too, but some were too small to be saleable, or nannies too close to kidding. We've got lots of kids on the ground but only a few lambs. Just about every nanny had twins and we've only had one lot of twin poddies so thats been a good thing. Poddy goats are cute, but very annoying in the house yard.

And of course we still have cattle. We've only had half our annual rainfall in our running 12 month total, so things are not so good grass wise. We're doing okay as we've been lightly stocked for several years due to the long term dryer conditions, but we will have to keep selling off as we can. Being organic, there really is only one market and that's fats, so if we have to sell stores, these would most likely go into the conventional market, so hopefully we'll continue to get little bits of rain and the weather will continue to stay warmish and we might just make it through until the end of winter. We're very lucky that we have quite a bit of leauceana and this has responded reasonably well to the recent small falls of rain. The grass is browned off, but does have a green pick when you look into it.

We have chickens for eggs this time and not meat.

And yes, we got pigs again - only 4 for our own personal use.

All in all life for us is at a much slower pace than it used to be and I've enjoyed having the time to do more in the kitchen and the garden. My goal for the garden is to grow most of my own vegetables and that combined with our own dairy products, eggs and meat, makes me very happy.

Preserving - Drying

A few years ago, when my son was giving up smoking and just had the munchies constantly. He worked out that the best two foods to eat when he had cravings was jerky and dried mango. That was my first attempt at making jerky and he went out and shot a roo for us to make roo jerky. Recently I've had another friend giving up so I made a batch of beef jerky. Only a small one, as I didn't have a lot of beef - topside is the best to use apparently. I marinated it in a mix of sauces (Worcestershire, soy and fish sauce) plus chilli, garlic and some dried veggie/herb seasoning.

Marinating the meat

drying the meat in my dehydrator

Jerky

I mentioned my dried veggie seasoning in my last post. This is great to do when you have excess veg. I like to use whatever veg I have growing, or am not likely to use up, and will usually add some herbs from the garden as well. I've used kale, new guinea bean, snake beans, chilli, garlic, pumpkin, mooring, capsicum, celery, zucchini. Basically you want a nice tasty dried veggie stock powder that you can use to season meals or even just to make a simple cup of soup with either hot water or bone broth. I do this in the dehydrator, and yes, I know I should be sun drying, but I just haven't gotten around to that, and I do wonder how it would go as it's always so dusty around here. Sun drying would be the most environmental way of preserving foods.

Veggie stock powder

When we stayed in Daylseford, the Permie Love Shack had a lovely bouquet in a vase - a bouquet of Bay leaves. Meg said that I was welcome to take them if I wanted to, so I did. I put them in a bag and hung them until dry. I did the same in Canberra when I bought curry leaves (they come in a lot bigger portion than we needed). I hung them in a paper bag until dry. Herbs are much easier to dry in bags and hang up than any other way. I like them in a bag as you don't lose any bits that would otherwise end up on the floor and the bag also keeps the dust out. Rosemary is one herb that I struggle to grow here, so whenever I get an opportunity to steal harvest someone else's, I dry it and then that gets processed into a powder. I think rosemary is one herb that doesn't spoil by drying, it seems to hold it's flavour well. Moringa is something you'll occasionally get from the markets (in the tropical regions) and this is considered a "super food" by some. I think it's fiddly to cook as it has really small leaves, so I've only ever dried it - this is best done in a bag.

I love to dry mushrooms when we get a bountiful wild crop. We only eat the common field mushroom and I must caution you, to make sure you know what you're doing when eating wild mushrooms. I know what we can eat and that's all I do eat. I got excited when we were away because I thought I'd found pine mushrooms, but after checking with a wild food facebook group they said not to eat them. I like to keep it safe. We walk around the paddocks having competitions to see who picks the most. Our mushrooms are usually very dirty so I get them home, brush them off and even wash some if they are really bad. I then place them gill side down on the dryer trays and because they aren't really fleshy like the bought ones, they dry pretty quickly. I do make sure they are VERY dry as I don't like moldy mushies! Then they are processed to a powder. Even after drying, there is often a bit of grit still in the mushrooms, but not nearly as much as when you cook them fresh.

Dried tomatoes are another favourite. I like to use the small ones for drying - just cut in half and if I think of it, I sprinkle with salt first. I fully dry them, rather than semi dried because that's how I like them. Also, you can keep jars full of dried tomatoes in the cupboard and then just marinate them as you want, which saves fridge space and they last longer.

My method for marinating is this:
Place the dried tomatoes in a bowl, then cover with a mix of half hot water and half vinegar. Allow to soak until cool. Drain off the liquid and add chopped herbs and garlic. Toss around and then place into a jar with olive oil. A trick I've discovered is to add a little sunflower oil with the olive oil and this prevents it from going cloudy in the fridge - you only need a tablespoon or two of sunflower oil. I know that sunflower oil is a seed oil but at least it's not genetically modified and I also think it's okay because it was a traditional oil (of the American Indians).

When you grow New Guinea Beans, Snake Beans or Zucchini, you will often have an abundance! These veg are best preserved by drying. Dried and packed into jars they will keep for a very long time in the pantry. The last lot of New Guinea Beans we did, we sprinkled salt on them and they were a nice little beer snack.

A little while ago I made Gomasio with foraged seaweed - I need another trip to the beach as I've eaten all this one. I posted about it here.

I did hang this to dry and it only took a couple of days.

Mango is a delicious dried snack. Yes, I know, mango is delicious no matter what you do with it! We have one common mango tree, which is otherwise called a cooking mango - great for chutney but once dried, you can't tell the difference between a dry common mango and a dry bowen mango. I'll dry banana's too when I have a home grown bunch. You get a massive bunch and they all ripen at once, so freezing or drying is what I do. Mostly frozen as it's great for making nice cream. Most fruits can be dried - just slice about 1/2 cm thick and usually takes between 12 and 24 hours to dry.

I like drying as a storage/preservation method for a few reasons:

1. drying reduces the volume so takes less room in storage
2. dried foods keep in glass jars at room temperature
3. not needing to freeze leaves more room for other things to go into the freezer
4. if sun-drying, it's very eco friendly. 

What do you like to dry?