Struan Farm

Weekend Flowers

It's a transitional time right now in the flower gardens at Struan Farm. Still a few roses, still a few hydrangea, still a few dahlias and other bits and pieces. But the summer peak bloom is definitely past. I'm grasping at straws somewhat when I go out to put together arrangements for farmstay guests as well as our own table. I can't be on autopilot, I need to look and have time to play around to come up with something that works.

I rather like the "antique" white hydrangea and pinkish sedum buds I put on our table this weekend, although it's not my usual "thing" is it?

These are more like it, I know!

 

Hydrangea Quandry: Antique, or Vintage?

I was interested to read recently that mottled, end-of-season hydrangeas are now being called "antique hydrangeas" by the floral trade, and sold for commercial arrangements. I've always loved using them here at Struan Farm. Weather conditions need to be right for interesting variations in colours to result, also for the flower heads not to get too dried out, withered or brown.

Here are some of ours from the gardens right now. I have gone a bit overboard with the pics, but thought they were interesting:

I must say though that I'd always thought that "antique" was defined as something that was over 100 years old, while "vintage" and "collectible" were used for younger items. So perhaps these are "vintage" hydrangeas rather than "antiques," since our oldest hydrangeas would only be approaching 65 or so? We'll go with that--vintage is much more trendy!

Pickled Pink

Decided to crack into my first pickling experiment a few days ago here at Struan Farm, the "pickled baby beetroot" from Kylee Newton's new book "the modern preserver." I wanted to taste them, basically to see (i) if I'd screwed up, and (ii) if I should make up another jar with surplus beets from the veggie garden.

I improvised a salad, with the pickled beetroot, buffalo mozzarella, rocket/arugula, smoked chicken, slivered almond, cukes, celery, and peak season plums. Thought the sweetness of the latter would be a good foil for the acidic pickle, which it was.

 

Both the salad and the beetroot were really good. So I'm gearing up for "Pickling, Take Two."

 

 

Keeping Up

No, not keeping up with the Kardashians or the Kaimanawas, but rather Rosie, Ruby, Pip and Pepper, Struan Farm's pet lambs. They are now out and about running with the mob, around various paddocks on the property. I'm trying to stay in touch with them every few days so that they remain somewhat domesticated, but (between us) it's a slippery slope.

What I find is that some days certain individuals might choose to acknowledge me, but this changes from day to day. No one comes running when I call anymore, they're past that. I suspect it's like high school, they're worried about what the other lambs might think, being seen with mum.

They all do let me walk up and give them pats. Sometimes somewhat grudgingly (okay Karen, if you really need to give me a scratch...). And they pretty much stick together as a group, still.

 

 

While I'd like them to keep remembering me as mum, I've done my job--it's good to see them healthy, fat and happy, munching away in the paddocks at Struan Farm.

Not Tired of Tomatoes Just Yet...

We have lots of beautiful heirloom tomatoes sitting on the kitchen counters and windowsill at Struan Farm at the moment, waiting to be deployed. Numbers are increasing each day right now, so we are faced with two choices: eat them for breakfast, lunch and dinner, or cook them up for use at a later date. (I guess there is a third choice-- tossing them on the compost pile, but that's not really an option in my mind, too wasteful!)

My latest adventure in "cooking them up" has been making "Tomato Kasundi," an Indian chutney, from Kylee Newton's new book "the modern preserver."  It was a bit more involved in terms of prep than I'd anticipated, it did take quite a bit of time to peel and chop ginger and garlic, chop chiles, apple, onion and tomatoes, and toast spices before the actual cooking commenced. But it tastes great so I'm glad I made the effort. 

And the good news is that the jars did pop and seal, so I can store these away safely on the shelf for awhile rather than in the fridge. 

 

It's the Country

I remember my mother-in-law using this phrase years ago in conversation with me, trying to explain why there was dust around the house. At the time, I didn't understand what she meant, thought that maybe she was implying there were more relaxed standards on housekeeping "in the country" vs. "town."

I now know that that wasn't what she'd meant at all, but I've had to live here at Struan Farm to understand that. (And Robertsons are far too nice to hit you over the head to make their point, something else I've learned since then too.)

"In the country" there are bugs and dirt everywhere. Flies, spiders, bees/wasps abound. Flies come with sheep, and vice versa. So you're contending with dead bugs dropping their carcasses inside the house for a large part of the year, along with cobwebs. Working outside in the gardens and around the farm, you bring dirt into the house no matter how hard you try to avoid doing so. Shoes are left outside, that goes without saying. And forget those fashionable town sandals and shoes on the farm, they get trashed and are totally impractical. Sorry Mr. Ferragamo!

"In the country" you could literally spend all your time cleaning if you wanted to live in an immaculate house. But who wants to do that? Cleaning gets done when it gets done, of course.

Mice and rats happen too. Guests from town leave doors open, and at certain times of the year the mice run straight for those open doors to nest and poop and run around partying at night, at least until you pull the plug on their festivities. Traps need to be set, they travel in pairs like Noah's Ark. And if you don't put rat poison under the house every few months you might hear rats rustling around below at night, sometimes crunching away on the wood. I used to be far more squeamish about them than I am now. "It's the country," pests happen from time to time, and they have to be dealt with.

So I'm smiling, remembering Rosemary's gentle words of wisdom. They took awhile to sink in, but I get it now and will try to pass it on. It's the country, after all!

 

Weekend Baking: Loved the Love Cake!

Saw a recipe for "Persian Love Cake" in last week's "Bite" magazine in the NZ Herald. It had been submitted by reader Emma Oakman as part of a recipe contest, and was one of two runners up.

The combination of spices (cinnamon, nutmeg, and cardamon) and pistachios, along with almond meal, yogurt, brown and demerara sugars all spoke to me. It's gluten free if that's important to you and very quick and easy to make, baking only for 30 minutes.

 

Served with plain greek yogurt, this is absolutely delicious. Really recommend you try this recipe!

Making More Gardens

John and I aren't done with new gardens at the new(ish) house at Struan Farm quite yet.

This past winter we extended the garden at the front by the drive, where I planted lots of flowers grown in the glasshouse, added a new little garden with a weeping silver birch by the gate that goes out to the paddock, planted a new garden at the far corner of the front lawn, and planted four feature trees on the lawn.

What we've had to do now is visualise the trees as mature in order to design the rest of the garden. Yep, that vision thing again. This is easier said than done, since the silk tree and the Gleditsia 'Sunburst' (Golden Honey Locust) in particular are both going to be quite large trees, but we think we've managed it. 

We deployed garden hose to play with the shapes and sizes of four more gardens. We'll be extending the garden along the front edge of the drive just a bit more, putting in a new garden at the front of the house near the deck to provide some colour (with another weeping silver birch), and planting two new gardens to create a walkway leading both to the paddock gate and between two of the feature trees on the lawn. 

 

As you can see above, we then let the grass grow in these areas to decide whether or not we liked the sizes and shapes. We did. So John has now sprayed these areas off. Once the grass dies we'll turn the soil over and start mulching and feeding. In winter I will plant.

We've also decided to plant a hedge of 100+ Griselinia littoralis on the other side of the driveway, along the fence, mirroring the one I planted two years ago.  As previously reported, the line of weeds running up this side of the drive was bugging me, and a hedge is the solution. This should finish the landscaping looking up (or down) the drive, although we've still got work to do at the driveway entrance. John will need to line along the inside of the fence with chicken wire to stop the sheep from eating the new hedge, but the hedge will eventually cover all that so it won't show.

I'm resting up for winter!

The Teachings of Tomatoes

Did you know that fruits and veggies teach you things? They are veritable zen masters. Take my tomatoes here at Struan Farm as an example.

This year they've taught me that they like to hide, so I must be observant. The first ripe tomatoes were hiding in the leaves at the bottoms of the plants. At a certain point in the growing season I need to cut back the leaves on the plants to expose the green tomatoes so they can ripen, and so I can find the ripe fruit. I also need to pull out all the lovely marigold plants that I planted at the garden edges as companion plants, which are going to seed at this time anyway. Otherwise the marigolds provide perfect cover for the ripe fruit hiding at the bottom of the plants. I need to look carefully, every day, for ripe fruit. 

Like John and me, tomatoes are pretty antisocial, they don't like crowds. I went overboard planting way too many plants this year and as a result have a serious tomato jungle happening. I knew I was doing it when I did it, but I should have stopped myself. Crowding makes it hard to walk between the plants to pick. They're okay with my stumbling around to a point, but have asked me to reconsider this for next year.  

Some diversity is a good thing, but we don't need the United Nations of Tomatoes in Piopio. This year I planted about twelve different varieties of heirloom tomatoes. Yes I did label every plant, but can I find those little popsicle sticks in the dirt now? I recognise some but not all.  Next year thinking I will stick to four or so varieties, two of which will be Black Cherry and Black Krim.

Lastly, like most people, tomatoes need support to grow properly. They should be staked well. My approach has been, shall we say, haphazard? John stepped in at one point to assist, but he's no expert either. I will read up on the finer points of this for next season, invest in taller stakes as well, so I can provide them with the support they truly need. 

So I'm listening to what they're teaching me, and becoming enlightened. No koans required.

 

The Quest for Quinoa

I've been keeping an eye on the quinoa plants I've grown from seeds here at Struan Farm. Over the past few weeks they developed clusters or heads, which gradually started to turn yellow and orange.

At this point I realised that I had no idea what to do, when to do it, or how to do it! I've never grown or harvested any sort of grain before, let alone an ancient one.

So I rang Stella at Running Brook Seeds, who'd sold me the seeds at the Clevedon Farmers Market, and asked for advice. She asked me how long they'd been growing and what they looked like. Apparently they were ready for harvest, I was meant to cut them and lay them out on newspaper for several weeks now to dry.

Once dry, I should be able to shake the stems out to get lots of quinoa. It will need to be soaked for at least 30 minutes before cooking.

Here are the plants drying out in the garage. The clusters are now turning more orange/red:

  

Stella asked me to report back once we've tried our very own quinoa!

The Newest Gnomes

Two new grandchildren, two new gnomes, that's what John started here at Struan Farm. Not sure he quite realised what he was getting himself into. At a certain point you can have too much of a good thing, and this might be one of those things..

The gnomes that arrived from up north for these two newbies are much smaller, about 1/3 the size of the other gnomes. They both have "manbags" or satchels, and are walking amidst flowers with pickaxes casually over their shoulders. Perhaps they'll be helping Mike out with the new track down to the river?

I've decided that we're going to have a voting process to name Toby's gnome on the Struan Farm Facebook page. We're in the process of coming up with a shortlist of names this week, then will have our FB friends vote on which one they like best. So watch for that on our FB page and vote for your favourite. (Just between us: my favourite is "Little Leroy," which was my nickname for Toby before he was born. There might be jelly beans in it for you if you cast a vote for "Little Leroy," not that I'm trying to influence the outcome or anything...)

Here is Little Leroy Toby's as yet unnamed gnome:

I'm making an executive decision on the name of new granddaughter Violet's gnome, for a special reason. The UK branch of the family, of which Violet is part, put forward the name "Little Tinker" as one of their suggestions for Toby's gnome. Apparently it is a term of endearment in the family. They did this not knowing that we already had a gnome waiting in the wings for Violet. So I'm christening Violet's gnome "Little Tinker." Jelly beans will be winging their way to the U.K. shortly!

Here's "Little Tinker":

Now John will need to get these guys situated somewhere. Rumour has it he wants to move the other gnomes out of the tawa grove to help with The Next Big Thing. We'll see what happens on that. 

 

 

Baking Down Memory Lane

As you might suspect, I used to bake quite a bit as a tween and teenager, when I wasn't babysitting! I remember making chocolate chip cookies, brownies and sheet cakes in our kitchen at home. But especially a particular "Applesauce Cake" from "Joy of Cooking," one of several cooking bibles found in most American homes.

The cake was moist and delicious. It wasn't iced, and wasn't too sweet. We always had lots of macintosh apples around our house in the fall. My mother made pies and homemade applesauce, which I used for this cake. I added raisins to the batter, sometimes walnuts too.

A number of years ago I went looking for the recipe, thinking it would be nice to make this cake again. But the recipe had been removed from subsequent issues of the cookbook, much to my dismay. And so I moved on to other cakes and other cookbooks, life went on. When "Joy of Cooking" celebrated its 75th anniversary not too long ago, I did buy an updated anniversary edition for my cookbook collection.

This past week, faced with quite a few apples in the orchard at Struan Farm, I decided to search the internet to see if I could find the recipe for the "Joy of Cooking Applesauce Cake." And guess what? I found it here!  

I used some of our Peasgood Nonsuch apples to make applesauce, after which I made the cake. And yes, it's the very same cake that I remember--moist and delicious! It was almost like reconnecting with an old friend after many years.

But the story gets better. Guess what else? I looked in the 75th Anniversary edition of "Joy of Cooking," and discovered that the recipe for "Applesauce Cake" had been put back in. 

It seems I wasn't the only one who'd missed it. 

 

Preserving the Garden's Bounty

Starting to get into it at Struan Farm. Preserving that is. I'm expecting a disaster or two along the way, so think I have realistic expectations. Jams and curds are one thing, they're quite easy, but I'm moving beyond that somewhat gingerly.

I've just purchased a copy of Kylee Newton's "the modern preserver" to help me along the way (yes, her title is all lower case, very trendy....). Kylee is a New Plymouth, NZ native now living in the U.K., where she's running a successful business called Newton & Pott, selling handmade jams, chutneys and pickles.

Her belief is that "preserving is an ancient technique which speaks to a modern sensibility. It puts you in step with the seasons, it uses up leftovers, and you control what goes into your food." We like that kind of talk here at Struan Farm.

I've been thumbing through Edmonds, Aunt Daisy and various old school bibles looking at recipes for beetroot, tomatoes, etc. But they've seem just a tad too old school to me, I've wanted/needed more information/guidance (they assume you pretty much know what you're doing, having learned from mum), along with more modern flavours/spices.  Seems I stumbled upon Kylee's book at just the right time.

A few days ago I kicked things off by making Peter Gordon's Tomato & Chilli Jam recipe. It's a staple in my friend Glen's repetoire at Doone Cottage, she makes heaps when tomatoes are in season. While it is jam, it's savoury, so I thought this was a good way to get beyond my fruit jam and curd comfort level.

 

Think I've done well on this, although the recipe only made two 250ml. jars instead of the "four medium jars" indicated. Tomatoes do vary. The recipe calls for 500 gr., maybe mine were heavier than his! Ruth Pretty has a similar version of this recipe out there that uses caster sugar instead of demerara sugar. I'm using the one Glen makes, with demerara, which is (I think) his original recipe.

Given loads of beets/beetroots in the veggie garden, next I tackled "pickled baby beetroots" from Kylee's book. Yes, it was a baby step with baby beetroots (pun, groan), and very simple. Plus, John had asked me to try making some "like Mum's." Not sure these are "like Mum's" but they may be okay nonetheless. We'll know on both scores in a few days.

 

(Note: those are cloves floating around in the jar!)

I'm still nervous about bottling/canning, so the surplus tomatoes looming on the horizon will be cooked into sauce and soup and frozen instead. Friend Heather at Country Trading has offered to help show me how to bottle, and I feel that I need that kind of supervision and advice to learn properly. Fortunately (or unfortunately) we don't have any plums as yet, so it's not urgent that I acquire this particular skill right now, there's enough to get done without it.

But that being said, if any of you have plums coming out of your ears, I'm happy to take some!

 

 

Bumper Crop

Virtually all of the apple trees we've planted at Struan Farm are fruiting this year, many for the first time. In the Old Orchard Paddock the Bramley, Cox's Orange Pippin, Liberty and Akane all have fruit. Granny Smith, newest of the lot, doesn't just yet, but then she needs another year or two under her belt in Piopio (she was a replacement for one that got attacked by a few naughty sheep).

Up at the orchard at the new(ish) house Peasgood Nonsuch and Monty's Surprise are laden, while the new dwarf Initial has two wee apples.

 

 

Every time I turn around both John and Clifford are munching on apples, while I have visions of apple crumbles and applesauce for the freezer. There even seem to be enough for the birds, so we're keeping everybody happy here at Struan Farm!

 

 

Making Tracks

More progress to report on The Next Big Thing at Struan Farm, i.e., the new river track and native reserve area alongside the stream down to the Mangaotaki. Nephew Mike has been working away on the bush end of the track, is doing a great job with both the track and the fencing. 

We're trying to make use of natural features such as the corrugated limestone rocks as much as possible, particularly since they aren't easy to fence around!

Over the weekend the Project Manager did wonder for the first time what he might have gotten himself into on all this. But we won't tell him we told you so, will we?!

 

 

Dead Beat at Deadheading

Must confess that I've dropped the ball on the deadheading front here at Struan Farm. With two weddings in the Homestead gardens in December and January they've definitely had my attention this summer, along with our farmstay guests. But lately the gardens at the new(ish) house cried out for equal time. They're greenfield, created from paddock over the past year or so.

The new gardens have exacted their revenge for my lack of attention. We're talking trailer loads of weeds, even if my FitBit can't quite keep track of those. (The volume of weeds should calm down somewhat as the gardens become more established, she says optimistically....and did she forget to mention that we're laying out more new gardens to plant over winter?....)

However the main Homestead gardens can be ignored for only so long. Deadheading of roses and hydrangea is seriously overdue! The roses have just had a second major bloom, should have at least one more for the season if kept deadheaded. The hydrangeas have had such a happy summer that they are falling all over themselves. I've read that it's good to cut off the spent blooms now since the plants bloom on new wood. Cutting back now will allow the stems to grow for next year's flowers. 

Heigh ho, heigh ho, with secaturs in hand I go!

   

p.s. and we just won't talk about those drooping dahlias, okay? 

One Potato, Two Potato

Three potato, four. Five potato, six potato, seven potato, more. I vaguely remember a game that involved saying this, going around in a circle and bumping peoples' fists, do you? The last one to have a fist in the circle ended up being "It," although I can't quite remember what being "It" entailed!

Lots of organic new potatoes now from the veggie gardens at Struan Farm.  John and I can't possibly eat them all. I will distribute some of the harvest to friends and family, but think I might explore what I can make with them for the freezer. Over the weekend I did make a potato salad with the first of our cherry tomatoes, sweet corn, red onion, and my homemade pesto.

 

Any ideas?

Tomato Time

This morning I FINALLY gathered a decent number of tomatoes from the veggie gardens at Struan Farm, not just the random one or two, so had to share!

 

 

Seed Saving

It's the time of year here at Struan Farm to start saving seeds for next year's gardens. So far I've got a stash of marigold, poppy, delphinium and purple snow pea seeds.

 

I've tried to save some zucchini seeds on paper towels, but looking at them I'm not so sure that's been a success.... This is pretty much trial and error on my part--I might need to leave a zucchini to get even bigger than those I took these seeds from, they're looking a bit immature. Really just resting up (and practicing up) to save a good stash of heirloom tomato seeds!

Nursery Rhymes, Waiting for Winter

Further to last week's post about the latest redevelopment project at Struan Farm, we're starting to acquire the huge quantity of native trees needed to plant this extensive area along the stream down the hill to the Mangaotaki River. So far there are 82 totara, 50 kahikatea, and 50 other varieties sitting shaded under the tawa trees. Everyone is getting watered each night. 

John is picking up a carload each week. The nursery will continue to grow, at least until winter when we can (and will) start to plant!