Struan Farm

On Nuts & Locking Down

Apologies that blog posts have been and may continue to be a wee bit spotty as we've headed into COVID-19 alert land here in New Zealand, Piopio, and Struan Farm. After tomorrow we will be at "Level 4," which means only leaving home for essential services like food shopping, doctor, vet, pharmacy in an attempt to stop the progression of the disease.

As you might expect we are relatively self sufficient here, certainly in terms of growing our own fruits and vegetables. I bake bread, and we have a large, well-stocked freezer. We certainly won't starve, and would expect to share what we do grow with others in our community.

Today I went out to the Old Orchard and Pet Paddocks to pick Granny Smith apples and see what was happening with the walnuts. After three hours I returned with this:

The walnuts caught me by surprise. We had such a bumper crop last year, and with this year's drought I didn't think we'd harvest all that many nuts. Clearly I hadn't received the memo from Mother Nature, who is telling me to gather these nuts and get them dried to use and share asap.

I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but this does have me wondering what she knows that perhaps we don't? 

Kia Kaha: On Hunkering Down

My current mantra is "When the going gets tough, the tough get growing."

I've gotten increasingly nervous over the past few weeks as coronavirus has decimated various countries around the world following the initial outbreak in China, and made progressive inroads here in NZ, basically via people returning from overseas. 

Most people who know me know I'm a contingency planner. I'm a bit of a worrier in the best of times. Global pandemics shift me into overdrive. I haven't been hoarding, toilet paper or anything else, but I have bought more food than normal for the freezer and pantry. Anticipating, as someone with a compromised immunity, that at some point I might not be able to go out. 

That point arrived on Saturday, when the Prime Minister asked people like me to stay home, not to go out unless absolutely necessary.

So here's the good news. As part of my contingency planning I'd ordered vegetable seeds and purchased seedling plants last week. I've planted silverbeet, spinach, rocket/arugula, beetroot, lettuce, carrots, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, kale, spring onions and parsley. In Veggie World and in the glasshouse here at Struan Farm. (Note: the net curtains are to deter white cabbage butterflies from laying caterpillar eggs on the brassicas.)

Our Monty's Surprise apples are ripe, so we have heaps of apples, some peaches still, quince, ripening pears, fig, walnuts and feijoas. We won't starve. I've got books to read, one last needlepoint stocking to make, and knitting yarn and patterns. We can go out and walk around the farm, it's not the same as being stuck in an apartment or small house in town, we're very lucky.

And we'll share surplus fruit and veggies with the Piopio Community Fruit & Veg Stand, somehow, some way, of course!

Kia kaha, we're all in this together.

 

Quietly, with Quince, Continued

It was another quiet day yesterday here at Struan Farm, as the quince crop landed in a big way, along with an announcement that several people and their whanau are in self-isolation in nearby Te Kuiti, with coronavirus test results pending.  There are Golden Queen peaches still, too. 

I decided to browse through a number of cookbooks from my pantry shelves. In an effort to evolve from my usual but limited repertoire given the quantity of quince this year. 

My experiments for the day were "Quince Butter" from Sophie Hansen's "A Basket by the Door," and "Poached Quince" from Tessa Kiros' book "Falling Cloudberries." The latter was bequeathed to me by my friend Glen when I last visited her, she had a bit of a book clean out with her recent move from Doone Cottage into town. I can tell she used this book quite a bit, it's been much loved!

It takes hours to work with quince, but they magically transform into melting, fragrant deliciousness when cooked.

For both recipes the fruit is peeled, cored and quartered. For the poached quince it's put into a boiling syrup of caster sugar, water, lemon juice and lemon peel for two hours, covered. The water is topped up as needed, since some syrup is required to serve (with ice cream or yogurt). For the quince butter sliced fruit is put into a deep roasting pan with the cores wrapped in muslin, and drizzled with a syrup of sugar, cinnamon, lemon juice and vanilla paste. The pan is then wrapped tightly with foil and left at 150C for 3-4 hours. After this the cooked fruit is processed when cool. The pureed fruit is then put back into the roasting pan to bake for one hour before then put into jars and sealed.

Yes, a five hour+ exercise. I started to worry that perhaps dinner last night might be a bit late!

 

Quietly, with Quince

I suspect I'm not the only one out there a bit overwhelmed by the progression of coronavirus, and the seemingly hourly updates of bad news from around the world. Yesterday I decided I needed to have a low key day here at Struan Farm to calm down, mostly.

I harvested more Golden Queen peaches and the first wave of quince, hooray. 

As previously reported, John is not a big fan of quince. But he will eat quince paste, or "membrillo," with cheese and crackers. Like most fruit pastes, making it is tedious but worth the effort. I use the quinces that have on the tree cracked first, so they won't rot. And I use Kylee Newton's recipe for membrillo from "The Modern Preserver."

1.5kg of quince is peeled, cored and roughly chopped, then put into a pot with the peel of one lemon and a split vanilla bean and covered with cold water. Once this is brought to the boil it is left to simmer for 30-40 minutes, until the quince is tender. After draining, the vanilla bean is removed and fruit and lemon peel pureed in a food processor. This pulp then gets measured, and 150 grams of sugar is added into a pot for every 250 mls. of fruit pulp, along with the juice of that lemon.

Then the real fun begins: once the sugar is dissolved into the pulp this boils until the mixture coats the back of a wooden spoon. The recipe says 1- 1 1/2 hours, but sometimes it takes considerably less time. It should be stirred constantly to avoid burning and sticking. The thick pulp has a tendency to erupt, spewing hot globules around the kitchen. I've bought a screen mesh splatter guard to try to minimise the mess and hot flying paste, you could use a tea towel in a pinch. It's best to be prepared.

Once the paste has reached the right consistency it is poured into a lined, buttered loaf pan or buttered muffin tins and baked for 40-60 minutes at the lowest oven temperature possible, then cooled, wrapped and refrigerated. It will keep for months in the fridge.

p.s. I did watch the Democratic presidential debate and follow up commentary while doing this!

 

Afternoon Harvest

Yesterday afternoon I had to recruit a helper to get the next wave of White Diamond grapes picked from the grape arbor/pergola on our front lawn here at Struan Farm. Even with my sturdy step stool I wasn't tall enough to clip the clusters of grapes off the vines. Enter John, with Clifford staying beneath to gulp up any random grapes.

While we had some grapes last year, this season the crop has been incredible, from one vine. And the red grape on the other corner has started to come around as well. 

There are still more to harvest on the vines, we're pacing ourselves. Just don't suggest wine-making, okay? We've got more than enough going on at this point!

Figs, Not Yet

Apropos of my post yesterday on the quince, I've been checking our two "Huia" fig trees here at Struan Farm every few days. Especially the one on the point out the back from our house, which gets more direct sunlight and tends to fruit earlier than the much larger one down in the Pet Paddock.

I've had nephew Mike deploy some of the netting removed from the Luisa plum tree in an attempt to discourage the birds. He's tossed the net over the top, we'll see if that proves any deterrent. 

Figs droop/sag down when ripe, and ours aren't anywhere near that just yet. We tend to get figs, feijoas and walnuts all at about the same time, but who know what will happen this year! 

It does look like it should be a good harvest. I'll make some Spiced Figs in Brandy, but will also try dehydrating some for the first time this year. Only so many boozy figs one can eat, right?

Quince, Almost

I'm in the orchard areas here at Struan Farm every day at this time of the year, sometimes two or three times, to harvest fruit. Right now it's the three peach varieties, Golden Queen, Blackboy, and Piopio Heritage White, fast and furious. Whatever is on the ground gets collected, plus each tree gets a shake. Not too hard, since I really don't want too much fruit raining down on my head that needs to be put to use or shared before it goes off. Even so, I've been gathering 30+ peaches each day, with plenty still on the trees.

I've been keeping an eye on our quince trees, Monty's Surprise and Granny Smith apples, and Winter Nellis and Comice pear trees too. Everything has been so early this year that it doesn't pay to operate by last year's schedule. The fruit needs to be checked.

And the quinces on one of our two trees are just about ready.

I've asked an experienced commercial orchardist who grows quince along with other fruit how to tell when quince is ripe. First and foremost, it's yellow, not green. And it's definitely ready if fruit has fallen on the ground. The latter hasn't happened here at Struan Farm, but the fruit on that one tree is pretty yellow. 

Given the peach frenzy still happening I'll give the quince some time. The birds don't go after it because it's rock hard, so there's no race on in that respect.

John does not share my affection for quince, but he does enjoy quince paste. I'll sneak some roasted quince past him for dessert or mixed with apples in fruit crumbles once or twice this autumn to keep testing that. Maybe they'll grow on him, like green beans.

Peachy Keen

It was lovely to have a much needed rainy day this week here at Struan Farm. The gardens, lawns and paddocks were dancing in relief, as was I.

While it was raining I took to the kitchen, roasting another batch of heirloom tomatoes and putting some of the peaches from our orchard to good use.

I made two more batches of Blackboy and Golden Queen peach ice creams, roasted rhubarb and Blackboy peaches drizzled with my homemade damson red wine vinegar glaze, and knocked off a few simple peach tarts using Blackboy and Piopio Heritage White Peaches and frozen pastry dough. (Cheater's tarts, really.)

The Blackboy and Piopio White Heritage peaches are easier to work with, being "free stone." To avoid any confusion, this doesn't mean they are without stones, rather the stones don't stick to the flesh like they do with "cling" peaches, like most Golden Queens. They also peel easier. 

I'll keep going with batches of the ice creams, which seem to be very popular at our house. Although John was circling the warm tarts wanting to know when he could eat one, with peach ice cream on the side of course!

On Getting Dehydrated

I've learned something from making my first batch of damson prunes here at Struan Farm. Where, after 24 hours of dehydrating, the damsons still weren't dried. Okay, a few were.

I'd purchased a Sunbeam dehydrator from Briscoes. Basically, one that was easy to find after my first stop at Noel Leeming, who have stopped carrying them and referred me to Briscoes.

After this failed batch of prunes I sent out an SOS to my friend Heather at Country Trading down Nelson way. Heather grows, preserves, ferments, makes cheeses and dairy/non-dairy yogurts, and has a wonderful innovative online business selling products focused on such. I asked her where I went wrong, and about the different NZ made dehydrator Country Trading sells.

It turns out the motor on the less expensive one I bought is on the top, while the motor on the New Zealand made EziDri one she sells is on the bottom. And it turns out having the motor operate from the bottom works better to dehydrate food. Otherwise dehydrators are pretty much the same, with stackable plastic trays. It seems I should have done more homework. 

I've ordered the EziDri dehydrator. With the tsunami of figs about to land I simply can't mess around. I also learned from a Country Trading FB post on prunes that they should be dried until hard and then rehydrated in tea or brandy for use.

We haven't wasted the semi-dried damsons, not entirely. While still quasi fresh they taste reasonably good with cheese and crackers. It makes me feel somewhat better. This is how one learns things, right?

 

Pomegranates, Pretty Please?

I'm very excited to see my pomegranate bush in the backyard here at Struan Farm flowering this summer, and flowering in considerable volume. Last year as I recall there were about eight blossoms, none of which turned into fruit. This year the number has increased to almost twenty, so I've got my fingers crossed.

I may get out a cotton swab and see if I can pollinate the flowers by hand, since they may need that to fruit. Research required. The bees don't seem terribly interested in them either way.

Dabbling with Damsons

I've been fortunate this season to have been invited to pick damsons from two different heritage damson trees in our wider area. It's been a good season, and people who have trees seem to have more than enough for their own use plus then some.

One of the trees is in an original settler orchard (now a farm paddock) in nearby Mapiu, the other is behind a farm homestead in Piopio. Fruit from this second tree was used by an Italian immigrant to New Zealand to make his grappa! It seems he also had a "still" back in the day.

I smile thinking about the history of these special fruit trees.

Not everyone knows what to do with damsons. They make incredibly delicious jam and fruit paste. Many people use them to flavour gin, but that wouldn't be me. I have put a stash in the freezer for winter Syrian Seven Spice Damson jam making sessions, but am also experimenting making a red wine damson vinegar. This inspiration came after sampling a friend's first batch. She'd made both red and white wine based versions following a recipe in Lynda Hallinan's wonderful book "Damsons From Hedgerow to Harvest." (We both preferred the red one, it was both sweet and tart if that can possibly be.)

The fruit is washed and chopped, then put into red wine vinegar for several days to macerate (one pint/two cups per pound of fruit). I didn't remove the stones, too time consuming. This is then strained through muslin/cheesecloth and boiled for ten minutes after adding sugar (with one pound of sugar per pint/two cups of juice). After cooling it is strained again and decanted into bottles.

I am at the second stage in this process right now:

The other wee experiment I've got going on at the moment involves making prunes from damsons, after reading recently from my friends at Country Trading that damsons are indeed a prune plum. Yes, this falls into the category of learning something new every day, doesn't it? I'd purchased a food dehydrator a few weeks ago in anticipation of this year's fig harvest. There are only so many figs one can bottle in spices and brandy, and I figured drying them with a dehydrator expands my options. If the test prunes taste good I may be making a larger batch of home-dried prunes as well.

I'm also saving stones from both trees to grow seedling trees to share with the community. This year I'm giving the one seedling tree I grew from "Grandpa's Grappa Tree" last season back to that family, while I managed to grow about six seedling trees from the Mapiu fruit. I'll plant one of those in our orchard and give the others away. Hopefully this year I'll manage to grow more of "Grandpa's Tree," for us and others. The stones are put into a plastic ziplock in the fridge with a few handfuls of compost to chill for 6-10 weeks, really until they start to split open and sprout. Then they're potted up to grow further.

It's special for me to have trees with an historical connection to the area growing here at Struan Farm and around the wider district, sharing them with people who appreciate that too.

You've now got a finger on the pulse! It's all happening here at Struan Farm.

Gobs of Grapes

With this continued drought I'm not doing much wandering around the flower gardens here at Struan Farm--it's simply too upsetting.

But a few days ago I did walk over to the grape arbor to check on the vines. Our purple grape "Festivee" is fruiting for the first time this year, after struggling to survive rabbit attacks its first year. And good news: while its grapes are few this season they're delicious. I'm glad I gave this vine the TLC it needed to recover.

But this post is really about the "White Diamond" grape on the other corner. It's laden! Clusters of beautiful green/white grapes hang down. They are hidden until one walks underneath, so I was totally surprised. The fruit isn't ripe just yet but we'll keep a finger on this pulse for sure.

This reminds me that we had a grape "arbor" at our house when I was growing up, near an old fashioned fieldstone BBQ. And we called it that. No home should be without its very own grape arbor.

In a Pickle with Chiles

This week I harvested two of the chile varieties we grew this season here at Struan Farm: serranos and jalapeños.  Serranos are good grilled, while jalapeños can be used fresh or pickled. The Asian "Wild Fire" chiles I cook with most often are still ripening to red, after which they'll be picked and frozen for later use. 

Since we use pickled jalapeños with fish tacos, I decided pickling was the way to go with our harvest from one plant. There's an easy recipe in The Modern Preserver, kiwi Kylee Newtown's recent book. Equal parts of apple cider vinegar and water are put in a pot with 1 1/2 tablespoons of sugar per 600 mls. of liquid and brought to a simmer, making sure the sugar is dissolved. In the meantime cumin seeds, bay leaf, salt and pepper are put into the bottom of a warm, sterile jar, on top of which are layered the sliced jalapeños. The hot pickling liquid is then poured into the jar before sealing.

The jar will keep for four weeks out of direct sunlight, it must be put into the fridge once open. I'd be tempted to grow more jalapeños if they'd keep longer pickled, but there are only so many one can eat in four weeks!

Ready to Crumble

The Bramley cooking apples are now ripe in the Old Orchard area of Struan Farm, so I need to get ready to crumble! Making apple crumble for the freezer that is. Apple crumble is easy to make and good to have on hand in winter for dessert.

I buy aluminium roasting/baking containers for this purpose, but it's basically yet another Karen improvisation. Apples are peeled and cut, put into the buttered containers, tossed with some sugar and mixed spice and dotted with a wee bit of butter. For the topping I use Annabel Langbein's crumble topping from The Free Range Cook. The recipe makes a reasonable quantity and can be frozen for later use too (find the crumble recipe in this link here). I bake the crumbles at about 180C until they start to bubble and the top is golden brown (around 35-45 minutes). Once cool I cover the containers with foil, label and freeze.

I've picked all the apples on the Bramley that I could reach, now to return with my telescoping picker to finish the job. 

A Roasting

I had time here at Struan Farm a few days ago to roast the first batch of heirloom tomatoes for the freezer. They've been accumulating on the kitchen bench, waiting patiently for me to get my act together. We love eating our homegrown produce through the year, and roasting and freezing tomatoes gives us a little taste of summer during the long, grey winter days.

About 2kg. of quartered tomatoes are popped into a lined roasting pan with some onion, garlic, basil, oregano, salt, pepper, tomato paste and olive oil, and roast them for 2+ hours at 160C. I like them to start to caramelise, and often will just turn off the oven and leave them to cool and cook down just that bit further. Once cool they are decanted into a container, and labelled/dated and frozen.

It's not the sort of thing that's a precise science to say the least, but the results are definitely worth the effort. The first batch of "Toms 20!"

The Apples of My Eye

You will know by now that when time permits I go off picking fruit on other people's trees. For relaxation, fun, and to contribute to the Piopio Community Fruit & Veg Stand. I hate seeing good fruit go to waste, and many people have trees laden that they just don't get around to picking and using.

This past weekend I went off to the nearby settlement of Mapiu, to an amazing old orchard area near an original settler homestead. The orchard has four different apple trees, pear and plums, with fig and damson trees nearby.

The owner invited me to come pick damsons for our use (the damson trees we planted last year have yet to fruit), plus pick apples for the Piopio stand. We had fun picking away, talking about the history of the area and the trees.

The damson tree, which must be over 100 years old, was beautiful and laden with ripe fruit. I've now got a big container of damsons in the freezer for winter Syrian 7 Spice damson jam making. I also removed stones from a dozen or so plums and put them in the fridge in a bag with compost to try to grow more seedling trees. I managed to grow five of them last season from this very tree to share with the community. Also read recently that damsons are a prune plum, so can be dehydrated to make prunes.

We agreed that in winter I will return to take scion wood for grafting from three of the apple trees, hoping that the grafting gods will once again smile upon me to propagate these special heritage apples.

Does Size Really Matter?

This is an age old debate, and now I'm trying to apply it to tomatoes here at Struan Farm.

You see, it looks like a "Super Steakhouse" hybrid tomato has taken out our "Tomato of the Year" for 2020. The contest has been based on weight historically, with the heaviest tomato of the season taking out the title.

I'd been rooting for Purple Cherokee heirlooms, my favourite variety. And while there was a contender, it was just not meant to be this season. The largest Purple Cherokee landed at 640 grams, while the largest Super Steakhouse was 756. There's another still ripening that looks almost as big, certainly bigger than the Purple Cherokee.

Which brings me to taste. Perhaps I'm trying to justify my love of heirloom tomatoes in the throes of defeat to a modern hybrid on size, but the Purple Cherokee did taste better. I'm sticking with heirloom varieties!

Home and Away

This week I was away up in Auckland for most of the week. There's never a particularly good time to be away from Struan Farm in summer, but I had some longstanding appointments sandwiched between farmstay guests and in concert with John's schedule. I was also needing a bit of downtime, something that isn't easy for me to manage. I did get a book read and enjoyed a few interesting meals.

Before I departed I did think it was probably the worst possible week to be away. John is flat out with his mayoral gig and the tomato tsunami is hitting, as are the early apples, nashis, beans, corn, and any day now the peaches. The weather has continued to be terribly hot, with watering of the veggie gardens and glasshouse in morning and night rather critical to our continued organic veggie supply.

I left John and nephew Mike rather detailed instructions about what to do and what not to forget. They didn't roll their eyes-- they must have conferred and decided that wasn't a particularly good strategy. And the good news is that they managed to cope (note: not that I doubted them). We had some rain, which helped. However, the tomatoes decided to play up. They hid from John, who isn't inclined to delve too deeply into the tomato jungle in search of ripe fruit. He expects them to step up and show themselves.

While some cooperated, others did not. 

They know they can't hide from me, and I'm home. Much of these will be taken to the Piopio Community Fruit & Veg Stand, especially the black cherry tomatoes. The big Super Steakhouse on top might be a contender, it will be weighed shortly. Now to sort out the house and get ready for arriving farmstay guests.

A Vintage BooBoo

A few days ago I was thrilled to find a "Vintage Brandywine" heirloom tomato in the Piopio Community Fruit & Veg Stand. I'd put some plants of this special heirloom variety in the stand earlier in the season, grown from seeds saved from two tomatoes I came across grown by Curious Croppers and sold at the Clevedon Farmers Market.

They have beautiful red and green striations, and are nice and meaty. Just my type of tomato.

But you will be starting to guess that there's more to this story. I'd saved a few of the plants grown in the glasshouse from those I contributed to the community stand to plant out in our tomato beds here at Struan Farm. The only problem was that it turned out I'd mislabelled the plants I kept--they were black cherries! So I wasn't able to grow any Vintage Brandywines at all this year, much to my dismay.

I thought I'd lost out on the opportunity to grow them entirely (seeds aren't available for purchase here in NZ) until I came across this lovely tomato at the stand. It was enjoyed in a "caprese" salad with Clevedon Buffalo mozzarella and homemade pesto, but seeds have been saved for next year's crop.

And rest assured I won't mislabel them again!

Savouring the Last of the Summer Strawberries

We are starting to get to the end of this year's strawberry season here in Piopio. You can sense it at Piopio Berry Orchard, that relief of being through the holiday peak is palpable. The summer recruits have gone back to school and it's family members and long time employees who remain for the home stretch.

Here at Struan Farm we're savouring every last one for as long as we can.

This past week for dessert with friends over I made David Lebovitz' "Strawberry Sour Cream Ice Cream" and "Strawberry Sorbet," both from his ice cream bible "The Perfect Scoop." And yes, I did strain the seeds for the sorbet once the strawberries were macerated in sugar and pureed. It makes a huge difference to the final product. 

This turned out to be a good pairing. The sorbet is intensely fruity, John finds it too much so on its own (predictably, I don't!). The sour cream in the ice cream cuts some of the sweetness, it works really well both as an ice cream on its own and a companion to the sorbet. There is also a version of this recipe made with peaches, which is excellent. (I'll be making that again once the Golden Queens land.)

Sprinkled with a few foraged blackberries for some pops of colour this was a great summer dessert on a hot night. I surprised even myself!