Struan Farm

Oodles of Zoodles

The editor's letter of the current issue of NZ Gardener Magazine makes mention of "zoodles" as a great way to use surplus zucchini from the garden. This was a new one on me-- noodles made out of zucchini with a "spiraliser" vegetable peeler. I was intrigued! A quick search on the Millys Kitchen website and one was on its way to Piopio.

Below is my first attempt. I mixed the zoodles with angel hair pasta, parmesan and freshly ground pepper for a quick dinner.

Next I will try nests of baked potato (poodles?) and kumara (koodles?). This little kitchen tool introduces lots of fun possibilities!

Bushed, Yet Again

John and I took a walk this week through our other QE II Trust protected native bush reserve, on the way to an area of adjacent paddock that he's fenced off to plant more trees.

We're extending this existing track down to the river, so visitors can walk down one way through the bush and return via the river metal/gravel track for a bit of variety.

This native reserve has some significant rimu, totara and miro trees, you can literally feel their presence and stature (at least I can, but I may be just a wee bit hyper sensitive to trees!).

 

It was good to see that the little red bench I'd painted and installed along the track for a contemplation spot many years ago now is holding up relatively well too.

 

A Draining Experience

It was time to pull the plug at the pond at Struan Farm. We do so every five or so years, when the weeds start to encroach and the algae gets bad. We choose not to dump chemicals into the water to try to deal with this for a few reasons. Yes, have read about the weed eating fish, but the related bio security issues and controls sound a bit complicated to contend with!

And so we drain it, using a plug installed for this purpose, give it some time to dry out a wee bit, then bring in the digger to scoop out the gook. It's a bit unsightly and messy for a while, but then everything goes back to lovely and serene pretty quickly when the plug is replaced and the pond refills.

We've timed this after our peak guest season so all will be in order before the next. Also coordinated with the frogs and the ducks, the live ones that is. Hughie, Louie, Tui and Dewey, the resident duck decoys, are left to fend for themselves. 

And always great when the dog jumps into the muck, isn't it?....

A Patriotic Call to Yarn

This is one of those "as only knitters can" stories. The New Zealand National Army Museum put out "A Patriotic Call to Yarn," asking the general public to make one hand crafted poppy for every New Zealand man and woman killed during war or conflict ahead of ANZAC Day this year.

By their count, the number required was 30,475.

Here I was just getting my act in gear on this, having read about the local rural women's group participating. I made two in the past week. Friend Cathy's daughters sent along three. 

The amazing news is that as of the end of last week they reached the number required, well before ANZAC Day on April 25th. Can't wait to hear about how the poppies will be displayed!

 

Autumn Raspberries

This is one of those good news, bad news stories. The good news is that beautiful autumn raspberries are now available at Piopio Berry Orchard.

There is a very short window of time when strawberries, blueberries, and raspberries are all available at Piopio Berry Orchard, and this would be it. But the days for strawberries and blueberries this season are numbered. The bad news is that summer is on the wane, autumn is rapidly approaching.

But if that's the bad news, we're actually okay, aren't we?

The First Wave of Natives Has Landed

Made a quick trip to Auckland at the end of last week for some minor surgery, so I was away from Struan Farm briefly. The good news part of it was that John and I had time to visit Manukau Institute of Technology's School of Horticulture. The school has an extensive nursery open to the public that offers low cost native shrubs, perennials and bedding plants for sale.

We filled the car with native renga renga lilies, kowhai, totara, manuka, rimu, ake ake, and a number of other native shrubs. Most will be planted along the top of the roadside bush at the new house, the one that I've been busy cleaning out over the past two weeks. I've been pulling out and killing bracken fern, blackberry, buttercup and black wattle, while nephew Mike has helped with some of the more problematic weeds like barberry and cotoneaster. We're going to fill in densely with totara, rimu and kowhai, basically extending the existing line and look of the native bush from the back near the veggie garden, since we love the look and texture plus the fact it attracts native birds. We'll also plant native shrubs on a rather steep bank out from the house in tiers, to landscape and stabilise this area on the edge of the drive.

The renga rengas will be planted at the entrance to our big tawa grove, where they're waiting patiently by Ringo along with the others. They'll be watered daily until the weather is such that they can be planted.

 

John is already planning his next section of native planting on another area of the farm down by the river, he'll return to MIT to fill up the car soon. This is the first installment of what will be a very busy autumn and winter planting at Struan Farm.

Bee Friendly

We're a bee friendly place at Struan Farm. We've made an effort to plant trees and flowers that attract them. In our backyard veggie garden I've planted borage, hyssop, and bergamot bee balm, all of which attract them. But they've been enjoying the zucchini blossoms too.

Whatever makes them happy (if such a thing is possible)! 

 

 

 

We're Crabby

I've planted a few Jack Humm crab apple trees near the apple trees in our two orchard areas at Struan Farm. I was told that they help apple trees to fruit, and they're pretty trees, so why not?

They are doing really well, are full of beautiful fruit. So much so I'm thinking I might need to come up with a use for them, they shouldn't go to waste. I'm not into making crab apple jelly, we wouldn't eat it.

Any ideas?

An Apple A Day

You will recall Struan Farm's resident dog Clifford is a somewhat complicated, eccentric personality. (We won't talk about how dogs sometimes reflect the personalities of their owners, will we?)

His latest stunt is eating apples that fall off the trees in our orchard.

He walks out with me in the evenings when I go to gather them up. I'm assuming they don't give him a stomach ache since he keeps doing it, rather that he must like them.

Then again, he might have figured out that Monty's Surprise apples are full of antioxidants, and good for him.....My real concern at the moment is getting to them before he does!
 

Leaving the Nest, or Not

I came across two abandoned bird nests this week at Struan Farm. The first was in one of our two stands of QE II Trust protected native bush:

Wedged in the center of a ponga/tree fern, what a creative, cozy nesting spot!

The occupants were long gone. The second nest I found near an area of bush we are cleaning up, and is a somewhat sadder tale:

Hard to know what happened here, but the nest was well protected, looks to me like mum didn't return.
 

Improv, with Kale

We've got a pretty reasonable crop of kale in our backyard veggie gardens at Struan Farm. My first batch got munched to stubs by caterpillars, but I managed to protect the next one with my companion planting and a bit of Derris Dust. (I also get the hose out to chase the cabbage butterflies away!)

Winged it this weekend on the salad front after picking a good bunch of kale. I massaged it briefly with lemon honey vinaigrette, then mixed it with fresh blueberries, freshly grated parmesan cheese, and homemade dukkah (Annabel Langbein's recipe from The Free Range Cook--the original one).

Seriously yum, the various flavours work well together.

 

 

Lost with the Ferns

John and I went for a wander this past weekend in one of the two stands of QE II Trust protected native bush reserves we have at Struan Farm. Our nephew Mike has been helping us with some work projects around the farm, including cleaning up the existing walking track through this bush, and extending it. He bushwhacked/cleared a path through the entire length of this bush area, which is just great.

I found myself captured by the light filtering through the ferns, and by the sheer number and size of huge pongas/tree ferns in this bush. Wow. Some of them look to be almost 20 feet high, and the groves form a fern canopy that is quite special.

Ferns have always had a special place in my heart for some reason, so was interested to look them up in my Victorian Flower Dictionary and find that they symbolize "sincerity."

 

I Say Toe-may-toe, Still

Kiwis say "toe-mah-toe," I say "toe-may-toe" still. Think I'd sound silly otherwise. But regardless of how one pronounces it, the first Black Krim tomato has been delivered up by the veggie garden at Struan Farm, big day!

I seized the moment (and the tomato), sliced it up with buffalo mozzarella with pesto for dinner. 

Yum.

Upcoming Crochet Workshop

Crochet has been having a huge renaissance overseas in the U.K. and U.S. in particular. Yes, even granny square blankets have been making a comeback, but this is not your Nana's crochet!

Designer Cathy Bebelman will be visiting Struan Farm in March to teach a special crochet workshop. Cathy designs knitting and crochet patterns for Countrywide Yarns and Lovells Knits, as well as for her own company One Green Sheep. Come along and learn how to create layered flowers. Participants will make a flowered brooch and hand felt it in the morning, then learn how to create an Irish rose with four petal layers in the afternoon.

The workshop will be held on Saturday, March 14 at the Homestead, from 10 a.m. - 3p.m. Lunch will be provided. This session is not for beginners, but fine for those who may have learned crochet years ago and need only a refresher on the basics (or for those who can learn the basics prior to the day). Advance booking is required since class size is limited to ten. Cost of NZ$75 includes lunch and all materials required. (You may want to bring a special button or embellishment for your brooch!)

Contact me at [email protected] to confirm your spot or with any questions. For those interested in learning crochet basics from Cathy, we are planning to have her back again over the winter, so please register your interest and I will let you know when we organise those dates. We've been talking about mandalas, especially after seeing some amazing examples recently on Pinterest!

 

A is for Apples

While we've had the odd one or two, this is the first year we'll actually be able to harvest a decent number of apples from our new orchard at Struan Farm.

Monty's Surprise and Peasgood Nonsuch. The other apple trees we planted in the Old Orchard Paddock (Granny Smith, Bramley, Cox's Orange Pippin, Akane, Liberty) have yet to fruit.

I decided to bake an apple pie for John, basically winging it as I went along. I started off with the Pate Brisee recipe from Martha Stewart's Pies & Tarts. It seems this book is now out of print, but there's a "New Pies and Tarts" out that is probably its successor. The pastry is made in the food processor, really easy. While it was resting in the fridge for an hour, I cut up and tossed the apples with some sugar, lemon juice and mixed spice. After rolling out the pastry, I popped the "Walnut Crumb Topping" from "Rustic Fruit Desserts" by Cory Schreiber and Julie Richardson on top, and baked for slightly over an hour.

It was a decent result, if I do say so myself! Apple sauce next, since there are more apples to come.....

Weekend Flowers

A relatively new neighbour came over to Struan Farm this past weekend for afternoon tea. Plans were a bit hastily arranged, so after baking up a quick batch of chocolate chip cookies I dashed down to the Homestead gardens for some flowers:

Pink and white roses with sweet peas, we do have standards to maintain! Lately I've been using these handy little galvanized mesh tops that screw onto standard glass jam jars for smaller flower arrangements.

 

 

With thanks to Oops-A-Daisy in nearby Te Kuiti!

We're All Ears!

Don't mean to bore you too much with (yet) another post about watching the veggies grow at Struan Farm, but I've been VERY EXCITED to see ears of corn forming on my corn stalks this week.

  

Last week the plants flowered at the top, while this week shocks of green silk have emerged, with little ears forming. (And he said it couldn't be done....)

Picnic at the River

It's been really, really, really hot these past few weeks at Struan Farm. (p.s. Have we told you it's been hot?)

So much so that we decided to bag sweltering over various work projects over the weekend and take a picnic lunch down to the Mangaotaki River. John and granddaughter Ella would have a swim, and I would photograph.

We had our picnic overlooking the Mangaotaki Rapids, my favorite part of the river. During summer, and given very little rain, the rock features are more exposed and quite interesting. (I must confess that this wasn't gourmet fare on offer: freshly baked wholemeal bread, butter, strawberry jam, hardboiled eggs (egg salad for me), and cold, crisp slices of watermelon.)

Our sandy swimming beach is just below this area. John had a great time swimming with Ella, encouraging her to be brave enough to swim out to him, tread water, and then swim back to shore.

It was one of those special days.

 

 

Summer Puds

I made two great summer "puds" (aka desserts) this past weekend at Struan Farm: a "Summer Pudding Loaf" and an "Apricot and Almond Cake."

While they were both extremely yummy, Ella and John preferred the apricot cake, and I really liked the summer loaf. Recipe for the (upside down) apricot cake can be found in the current issue of NZ House & Garden magazine (February). Ella helped me make it, and loved seeing the cake tin turned upside down to reveal the beautiful, fresh apricots that we'd put on the bottom and topped with batter.

The recipe for the summer loaf can be found (I think?) in the current issue of Dish Magazine.

Farmers & Gardeners, Rejoice!

Not sure how the sheep feel about this, but everyone else is heaving a big sigh of relief. Our collective rain dances worked, the rain started to come on Sunday and continued all day yesterday. 

It's funny, but I can almost sense the earth opening gratefully to take it all in.