Wednesday, October 19, 2011

A Wander Through The Garden

While the sun was shining I took the opportunity to wander around the garden - camera in hand this time instead of a cup of tea! The productive aspects of the garden are developing nicely. Most of the fruit trees are only a few years old so are only just beginning to produce fruit but it looks like this year's crop will be a good one.

This year I'll get the fruit off the apricot trees a little early as last year a large proportion of the crop exploded in the humidity - they were still tasty though.

This is the second year of flowers on the avocado. Fingers crossed for fruit this year.

The birds enjoyed the cherries last year - this year we will! I'll be netting the tree!!!

There are always loads of lemons on the two ancient trees in our yard.

Plenty of blossom on the dwarf Imperial Mandarin.

Nectarines

Hopefully we'll see a nice first crop off the Packham pear.

The strawberries are still producing... this is their fourth year!
If all this potential abundance comes to fruition, it will mean a busy time in the kitchen preserving a wonderful harvest. And, hopefully plenty to give away, too!

Sunday, October 16, 2011

Home Made Lemon Cordial

Now that we're half way through spring, we're starting to indulge in cold drinks again. While water is always the best choice in cold drinks... sometimes bubbles and sweetness are needed, too. So this weekend I've made use of a bucket load of lemons from our trees and made lemon cordial. We can then use this cordial to flavour plain old tap water or for a bubbly treat, soda water. 


I used this recipe from www.homemade-gifts-made-easy.com. I'm very pleased with the result and will use it again next time.
The 'hard work' - squeezing lemons.

Simmering the sugar syrup and lemon zest .

The finished product!
No artificial colours, flavours or sweeteners and no added preservatives, just sugar, water and lemon juice. And, cheap! Just $2.19 for 2kg of 'plain label' sugar!!!


If you have access to some lemons, give it a go.


Now I'm looking forward to the raspberry crop so I can try making raspberry cordial. Recipe recommendations gratefully accepted!