There will be chooks!

This is what Enid Blyton would call the bottom of the garden.  Only, in this garden we're fairly certain there are no fairies.  You can see the creative reinventor starting to build a poultry palace.

It'll be a little while yet.

Then and now

This is the back garden in May, when we took possession of Marmalade Cottage.  It had been unrelentingly hot and dry.

 

We resisted working on the garden for a long time - there was so much that desperately needed doing in the house.  So we focused on the house.  

And the work in the house is pretty tedious - painting, sanding, cleaning...  It got boring.  And it had rained.  We wanted a harvest and a lovely place to relax as spring came.  

This is how things look now.

As well as Lola-cat skulking through the broad beans, you can see kale, garlic, rosemary, mulberries and the tangelo tree.  You can't yet see the potatoes, lettuce, beans, peas, nasturtiums and sunflowers.

Isn't it gorgeously green?

Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme

One of the first decisions on the Marmalade Cottage kitchen garden was where the herb garden would be built.

   

This is immediately outside the back door.  It is badly infested with onion grass, oxalis and those little bulbs with indestructible reed-like leaves and pretty, little, pink flowers.  We've dug out huge piles of the weeds, but are sure there are more, just waiting to appear later in spring.  The bay tree seems to appreciate being cut back and freed of the weeds choking its roots.  The grapevine doesn't look at all well. We hope it'll survive.

 

Gumtree yielded a load of limestone blocks.  The practical reinventor and her screen siren-lookalike friend, D, donned gardening gloves and with much co-ordinated effort loaded them into the ute.  They left the creative reinventor, who is much better built for such donkey work, to unload and put the blocks in place.  With some compost and a load of racehorse poo, courtesy of the stables at Ascot, the bed was ready for planting.

 

And here it is!  All planted out.  As well as parsley, sage, thyme, stevia, chillis, oregano, chives, and basil gratefully removed from the pots they've been in for years, there will be dill and coriander grown from seed.

Along the back there are four blueberries and an elder.

Digging and planting

The practical one has had a week's holiday between jobs and has tried not to waste any time.  At the end of the week, she has grumblingly submitted to a nasty case of laryngitis (which comes with a crop of razor blades in the throat).  However, this is what was achieved:

 

This contains  asparagus.  We'll have to be patient as they need 18 months to two years to get established.  There are also heartsease seeds under the plum tree waiting for enough sun and rain to germinate.  They're pretty and edible.

They are bed heads.  Putting them in a garden bed made sense.  They'd be left for us in the shed by the previous owner.  This bed will provide rocket, silverbeet, lettuce, peas, butter beans, purple sprouting broccoli, golden beetroot and, hopefully, purple carrots.  The soil is clay, and carrots don't usually do well in it.

And this is what we're left with - a gigantic pile of weeds.  There are only so many we can throw over the fence to the neighbour's chooks.  Hopefully a healthy dose of racehorse poo will help it compost down quickly.

Eponymous

 

This is the inaugural batch of Marmalade Cottage Marmalade. It's the practical one's Great-Nana Blanche's fail-proof recipe, the one that really only works in imperial measures, and always sets to a glorious, rich jelly.

This version uses oranges from Rusty Hollow and limes from Moondyne Park.  The very best marmalade is collaborative.

Spring is starting to spring

There's been some really good rain, and some lovely sunshine.
This is what happens:

 

The kaffir lime that looked terminally ill decided it liked being in the ground and rewarded us with lovely, glossy black foliage.

The new mulberry tree that arrived as a couple of bare branches has erupted with leaves and baby fruit.

Meanwhile the broadbeans are nearly 10cm tall and vigourous and the cavalo nero (black Tuscan kale) that was roughly dug up from the last garden, dumped into pots, then replanted, has gotten over its shock and is also vigourously growing.

To add to that, the reinventors have planted garlic, artichoke, parsley, sweet peas and assorted herbs.

We will have a harvest this year.

By request - Marmalade Cottage mulled wine

Essential for any winter party!

You will need:
Two bottles of reasonable red wine
One orange
Half a dozen cloves
A stick of cinnamon
Sugar to taste


Stud the orange with the cloves, and bake it in a 180deg oven for about 20 minutes.

Pour the wine into a saucepan, add the cinnamon, slice the baked orange into fairly small pieces and add to the wine.

Bring to a very gentle simmer for five minutes or so.

Taste and add sugar until it makes you feel warm and cozy.

Share with friends around a fire.

By request - Marmalade Cottage clam chowder

At the creative one's birthday party, the clam chowder was a hit. Which rather surprised the practical one, as she'd never even tasted it before!

This is the recipe, adapted from one found on the internet.

Serves about 8

Ingredients3 medium potatoes cut into 1cm dice
750g clam meat (I could find only frozen meat, but if you get fresh clams, you will need to steam them open in some water or white wine and strain carefully to get rid of any sand or grit.
2 litres fish stock (hot)
2 tablespoons butter
½ cup flour
1 brown onion, chopped finely
2-3 sticks of celery, chopped finely
4-6 cloves garlic finely chopped
600ml light cream
salt and pepper to taste 3 bay leaves
As much fresh dill as you like

Method
Gently melt the butter, and sauté the onions, celery and garlic, but don’t let it get more than pale golden. The soup has to be white.

Stir in the flour quickly with a wooden spoon, then add the hot stock a dribble at a time, stirring as you go until it’s all incorporate and nice and smooth.

Add the bay and half the dill, then the potatoes and three-quarters of the clams, simmer until the potatoes are soft.

Take out the bay leaves.

Whizz with a stick blender, then add cream and adjust your seasoning.

Add the rest of the clams and simmer until they’re cooked. Just before serving add the rest of the dill.

We have growth

The reinventors have been trying to put off working in the garden in favour of getting the house ready.  Which was a good idea, but the weeds and mud and lack of things to eat has gotten to both of them.  So there have been a couple of forays into the soil. 

 The broadbeans have sprouted.

 Marmalade Cottage will have tangeloes, which make superior marmalade.

 The cavalo nero survived being dug up, roughly potted, then replanted.

 Marmalade Cottage will have lemons in a couple of years.  In the meantime the lovely neighbours have been bringing over great bags to keep the reinventors going.

An experiment - a male and female kiwifruit.  One male will, apparently, fertilise up to eight females, but there simply isn't enough space.  Sometime very soon, they will need a strong trellis.

The kitchen comes together

The cooking corner.  No clanging around in too-small drawers trying to find a soup ladle - everything is in reach.

The washing up corner.  Lots of places for dishes to drain.

The inaugural party

So it was the creative one's birthday yesterday, and what better excuse does one need to throw a party?

The reinventors were most pleased that no one went through a floorboard, and nothing attached to the house caught fire.  There does seem to be rather more beer and wine after the party than before, and they are not drawing any conclusions from that.

The free-off-Gumtree stove performed admirably - clam chowder, spiced mushroom and cauliflower soup, baked potatoes, beef stew, braised lentils, broccoli with lemon and almond sauce, and mulled wine. 

It did not cope with pavlova.  But, as any creative cook knows, lots of whipped cream and fruit atop will adequately disguise a flattish meringue.

The reinventors suspect that's the first party Marmalade Cottage has seen in nearly 50 years.  And Marmalade Cottage had a lovely time.

Yes, we still have no internets

But there is progress.

After the practical one cracked the shits at the contractor who wanted to charge $620 a hour to dig a trench, and dug it herself, it then took another two weeks for anything to happen with the trench.

But at last the contractor of the contractor of Telstra showed up to put cable in the trench.  And left without even filling it in.  However we have a plug in the wall that will soon be connected to the outside world.

Which is progress indeed!

In less technical news - the kitchen is all but finished and there are fruit trees planted in the back yard.  The loungeroom sports its first coat of paint, which was not achieved without setback - the creative one (who is a big lad) put his foot through a floorboard.  So the search is now on for matching boards with which to patch.

The Marmalade Cottage family briefly grew to four with the arrival of Susie, a Maltese Terrier-Shitzhu cross.  Except Susie, who is seven and has always had people and other dogs around her, could not cope with being left alone, and destroyed her leash, every cardboard box she could reach and most of the potted herb garden, before climbing a fence and visiting the neighbours.  The reinventors simply aren't able to be with her all the time, so she is looking for new owners.

Lola cat is much relieved at the departure of Susie.

Failure to connect

If you’d thought connecting to the telephone was a simple exercise and considered a basic necessity of modern housing, you’d be most emphatically wrong.

Marmalade Cottage has never been connected to the phone, not even in the days of the Post Master General’s department.

In practical terms, the connection is a matter of digging a trench, running cable from the pit in the footpath to where you want the socket installed inside the house.

In reality it’s insanely complicated and, depending on who you ask, and on which day, quite often conflicting.

The whole telephone-connection system is set up for new houses, so working with a 94-year-old house causes throwing of hands in air, and, one suspects, muttering under breath.

The phone has to be connected to the electrical meter box.  Or it doesn’t. 

The cabling has to go in a trench directly to the meter box.  Or it doesn’t.

The trench has to be 350mm deep.  Or 300mm deep.  It has to be 250mm wide.  Or 150mm wide.  Or the width of a spoon.

The trench can cost $341 or $428 to dig.  Or you can dig it yourself.  Provided it’s deep enough and wide enough.  And in the right place.

The reinventors are digging their heels in and demanding a definitive explanation of what’s required and where, and a quote in writing.  The provisioning company is finding this difficult to understand. 

Apparently the Marmalade Cottage situation is unusual to the degree of about one-in-10,000.  Everyone gets the phone connected when they build the house, don’t they?!

Getting there

Here's what you can achieve in a week off work:

• Restring the Hills hoist.  The former owner had strung it sometime back in the 1960s with electrical wiring, which is quite strong, as it's copper.  Unfortunately it's coated in black rubber, which, as it perishes in the sun, leaves nasty black marks on one's washing.  It required big snipper-pliers, a hacksaw and calculated swearing to take it off.
• Seal the kitchen floor.  More hands-and-knees work.  The floor looks appropriately rustic and should stand up to whatever we (literally) throw at it.
• Paint the entrance hall.  The practical one thoroughly detests painting, but can't deny that it makes a very big difference.  Most of the 1940s vintage cream paint (not) enhanced by 50 years of cigarette smoke is now a lovely, snowy white.  Once the skirtings, architraves, window frames and our intricate arch is picked out in foresight blue (that's its real name) it will look quite spectacular.
• Two trips to Ikea.  Much as we'd sworn to foreswear the warehouse of frustration and broken fingernails, it turned out to have exactly the sort of stainless steel shelving and racks we needed.  The second trip secured the perfect stainless steel island bench.  Once the kitchen is painted, we can put up all the shelving and racks and the kitchen will work really well.
• Discover the kitchen mantlepiece is a lovely piece of jarrah.  Underneath cream, white, pale green, darkgreen and yellow paint.  It's nearly stripped clean, and, once sanded and varnished will be gorgeous.
• Move the rainwater tank.  Which had been carefully placed to render the Hills hoist largely useless.  This involved emptying it (about a third full) onto the back yard, then rolling it to the concrete pad that was and will be the chook shed.  Eventually we'll plumb it to the roof of the new shed for which we haven't yet budgeted.

There's more, but it makes my head ache thinking about it.

This weekend we'll fill as many of the holes left by the electricians as we can, then get a lot of painting done, put up blinds in the kitchen and bedroom, shelves and racking in the kitchen.

Baby, it's cold outside

So this is what happens if you're really lucky.

You have the gas connected to your old house for the first time in its 94-year history.  That's the digging up of the footpath to get the gas pipe from the street to your house.  Then you have a heap of copper piping strapped to the side of your house, connecting the meter box to your stove and hot water service.

Then the gasfitter submits some vitally important paperwork to the gas regulator.  Who decides your job needs to be audited and promptly switches the gas supply off.

You, of course don't notice this until 7.30pm on the Saturday of a long weekend.

Several increasingly miffed phone calls ensue to the gas regulator, the gas inspection people and the gas fitter.  Nothing happens.  You manage to cobble together dinner, and you go to bed grubby from a day's scrubbing and moving.

The next day, a gas inspector turns up apropos of nothing.  He looks vaguely at your gas meter box, then announces he can do nothing as he doesn't have the paperwork.  You ask why he's here.  That conversation goes nowhere.

Fortunately, your gasfitter is a compassionate fellow and resends the paperwork to the gas regulator.  Then the gas inspector reappears and approves your gasfitter's work.  But he doesn't turn the gas on.  That's not his job.  That's the gasfitter's job.  The gasfitter can't come, he has small children to supervise and no car that day...

The practical one is furious and has several strongly worded letters half-composed.  Grrrr...