Zucchini Fest

We have soooo many zucchini's!!!

So, today I decided to have a zucchini fest! I got a little experimental and for lunch we had zucchini slice and for dinner we had both mini zucchini pizza's & also zucchini pasta with olive oil, garlic, walnuts & pine nuts. The winner for me was the good old favourite zucchini slice, so here's the recipe....

Zucchini Slice:

1 large zucchini grated and squeezed to rid of excess liquid
1 cup of spelt flour (could use any other flour)
1 tpsn of bicarbonate soda ( or 2 tspns baking powder)
1 onion sliced
2 cloves garlic finely sliced
Bunch of fresh herbs eg. sage, basil, parsley, thyme finely sliced
 2 tbsn olive oil
2 eggs beaten
1/2 cup feta
1/2 cup of finely grated parmesan cheese
Finely grated nutmeg (optional)

Preheat oven to 180 C and well oil a baking dish. Mix all dry ingredients in a bowl. Heat some oil in pan and saute onion and garlic and when turning soft, add zucchini. Cook for about 5 minutes. Then add all other ingredients (except parmesan & nutmeg) to the flour and pour into baking dish. Sprinkle parmesan and nutmeg on top and cook in oven for about 20 minutes. Insert a knife to make sure the slice is cooked in the centre. Serve with ample salad & home made chutney or relish!!

We are also experiencing a plum glut!! I have been dreaming of ice cream and today I made roasted blood plum frozen yoghurt. It is extremely yummy!! It was very simple to make and needs to be shared...

Roasted Blood Plum Frozen Yoghurt:

1 kg blood plums halved and stoned
1 tbsn brown sugar
Sprinkle of cinnamon powder
Pinch of salt
1 cup yoghurt
1-2 tbsn honey
1 tspn vanilla essence

Preheat oven to 180 C. Roast plums on a well greased baking dish, sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon for 20-40 minutes until soft and sticky but on browned. Cool to room temperature. Puree or press through a sieve if you want a smoother texture or just blend as is with the yoghurt, honey and vanilla essence. Chill and then mix in an ice cream maker or freeze until just hard and then whip up and serve. Enjoy!

Frogs in the Mandala

 It was the fulfillment of a vision.... I could hardly believe it when I saw him, especially given that it was a 40 degree day. How could that little moist skinned fellow exist under such scorching heat even under the shade  of a particularly big Radicchio lettuce.....

 When we first dreamed of having mandala gardens at Peace Farm we were inspired by the idea of  a complete system combining seasonal crops, perrenial fruit trees and chicken tractors dancing in a rotational cycle with the seasons.

The Mandala Gardens began as a bare patch of ground.

At the centre of this great swirling, like the planets around the sun, was to be a pond. An intrinsic element to this permaculture design, the pond has many functions. It acts as a heat sink to stabilize temperatures as they fluctuate between day and night. It can also cool and moisten the environment as warm winds evaporate the water as they pass over the pond's surface.

The introduction of the pond brought the element of water to the garden.

What I love most however is that these ponds become home to lizards and frogs who feast on the slugs, snails, grubs and grasshoppers and whatever else takes their fancy. In the wonderful synchronicity that is the Mandala System, it just so happens that these are precisely the critters that we want to discourage.

The chook tractor is another key element of the Mandala garden.

 The three ponds' construction was completed in late spring. By then the frogs were done mating and their season's eggs had already become tadpoles so there would be no frogs in our ponds this season, unless we could get some from elsewhere.
It just so happened that whilst visiting a neighbour I was delighted to noticed their tadpole laden pond by the front entrance which they were more than happy for me to dip into. I happily headed home with a couple of glad bags sloshing at the end of my handle bars.

This is how the Mandalas look today. A veritable Garden of Eden!

I introduced them into the pond and watched them mature over the following weeks and then.......they disappeared.

I imagined that if any had survived the hot pond conditions (Not enough tall plants for shade around the pond yet) they would've headed for the larger dam down the hill and resigned myself to trying again next year to establish a frog haven, until..........

Just two days ago I was pulling up some bolted lettuces from the central pond garden to feed to the cows when this pale little fellow leapt out from under the green foliage. I believe he is a brown tree frog, a species common to southern Victoria. 

Look who was hiding under the giant Radicchio lettuce!

He represents to me the emergence of a complete eco-system that not only supports and sustains our nutritional needs but is also a home to unknown quantities of wild creatures living above, within and below the foliage. Through their contribution in harmony with all of the other elements of this eco-system it is becoming an environment of growing inspiration.

Author: Murray

Spiced Plum Chutney

This plum chutney is sweet & spicy! Made from our home grown plums and onions, it was  wonderful with our hand picked salad and home made chicken & herb sausage rolls...

Spiced Plum Chutney  Recipe

(adapted from a River Cottage recipe)

1 1/2  kg plums coarsely chopped

2 apples cored and chopped

3 small onions chopped

500g sultanas or raisins

500g light brown sugar

500ml red or white wine vinegar

25g fresh ginger grated

3 cloves

1 stick of cinnamon

pinch of salt

1 tspn cumin seeds

Place all ingredients in a large pot and cook for 20 minutes. Cool for a few hours, then bring to boil and then simmer for 2-4 hours to thicken and spoon into sterilized jars. Enjoy!!

Happy hay baling day with no baling out

Last Saturday 18 Jan we finished off loading all the remaining hay bales from our back paddock with help from our wonderful wwoofers Sarah and John, and some dedicated Peace Farm members and friends, Carmen, Andrew, Maya, Kari and Steve.  We had been waiting since early December for the weather to clear for long enough to cut the grass, let it dry and then to be baled up.  This finally happened in the second week of Jan.

Matts team

Until Saturday John and Sarah were working tirelessly on their own to load and stack the 300 odd bales.  Thank goodness for reinforcements.  Two competing teams went down to the back paddock in Matt's and Murray's cars and tried to out-do how may bales could be stacked on.

Matts team were pretty happy with this load.

Maya kept swapping teams, here she is helping Muz's team

 Maya showed her excellent strength and endurance,  helping out both teams with their loads. Murray's team was slower than Matt's team but loaded an unbelievable 34 bales on his little car and trailer (this figure is according to Murray but may be in dispute by other team).  Matt's team was having too much fun and forgot to count, but perhaps only got around 32.

Kari ready to unload the bales

The shed is now completely full of bales

 After satisfactorily finishing the job in a matter of hours it was time for a swim in the dam to cool off and a delicious shared picnic lunch.

Thanks to everyone for helping us, and now help us by coming and buying the bales - $7 each.

Cheers,  Cat

Celebrating Lammas

Lammas is a celebration at the mid point between the Summer Solstice and the Autumn Equinox.
The essence of this festival is to celebrate the first harvest.

It is a time to give thanks for the Abundance of the Earth, acknowledging what we harvest from our efforts, what gifts we receive from the Earth.
It is also a time of dry heat, grass fire, and bush fire.
The main colours are yellow, orange and red (dry grass, corn, tomatoes...)

Today we gathered in the circle and shared about what we were symbolicly harvesting in our life.

We made some corn dollies from the harvest of our corn and wheat from our mandala garden.

"Corn Dolly" is an ancient craft going back to when it was thought that a spirit lived in the cornfields. To honour and preserve the spirit at harvest time and ensure the success of next year's harvest, a corn dolly was made for it to rest in.