After a balmy morning, clouds rolled in, temperatures dropped, and icy winds began to blow. But there were adventures to be had, so I bundled up against the cold and headed to Oma’s house with a bag of limes for her and her family.
A while ago Oma planted heaps of garlic in her paddock, both one-cloved Russian garlic and regular garlic. They are now strapping seedlings and she invited me over to gather her garlic bounty to plant in my garden. I was thrilled!!
Bear and I love garlic. Roasted, fried, tucked into nearly every savory dish we eat, it is definitely a favorite around here and we never seem to have enough.
Oma’s grandchildren, Katie and Alex, went out there with us, digging down into the black soil Southern Queensland is famous for. The bulbs smelled absolutely amazing, and we were delighted to find that even the ground smelled like garlic.
Everyone piled their pickings into my hands and I now have about 100 garlic seedlings ready to tuck into place in my garden.
Then we went over to Oma’s orchard where she pointed out the sweetest little bird’s nest perched in the branches of one of her fruit trees.
One of her quince trees has new shoots sprouting up around it, and Oma and Katie hacked and dug and pulled one out for me to grow at home. I’m so excited. Last year Oma gave me quinces off her tree and I made the most luscious liqueur with it. Once my own tree starts producing, I’m looking forward to making more liqueur and several jars of quince paste to go with our current favorite cheese, triple cream brie.
After the work was done, we went for a wander around the farm, stopping to look at the fat and gorgeous chickens before heading to the pig pen to see Oma’s three beauties. Who could resist those adorable faces?
Later this week Oma and Katie are coming over to tackle part two of making apple wine. We taste-tested today and it is mighty potent stuff with a marvelous fragrance. A bit more sugar syrup for sweetness and time to age and it’s going to be a mighty fine brew.
I’m so grateful for kind and generous friends who share their knowledge and fruits of their labors. It’s so much fun to learn and work together.
What projects are you tackling this week? xo
What fun Krista. I am in love with young garlic so would be pulling some of it out of the ground in early spring to use in my dishes or using the garlic scapes. As for any projects it is far too hot to do much of anything at the moment. If only I could sit at the beach with cooling breezes and refreshing dips all day long 🙂
It is fun to share the fruits of one’s labors with another isn’t it? Oma has become a favorite of mine, I love every time ‘we’ visit her place. Let’s go back again soon!
What a fair barter – limes for garlic 🙂 And hope your quince tree grows amazing fruit. This week my projects centre around writing 🙂
Oooh…. how delightful, love the sound of your apple wine. 🙂
And the pigs look happy as. Especially the spotty one, so smiley. LOL!
How lovely to be given the garlic. We eat a lot of it too. Good luck with part two of making the apple wine xx
I’ve never seen Russian garlic before. Does it grow into one massive clove? My project for the week is clearing a space for a raspberry seedling in our “back quarter”: the last three feet of yard before the fence line that’s gone rather wild around our trees. It’s hard work, but so satisfying to see my cleared spot growing – and my garbage bag filling with quackgrass and manitoba maple seedlings. It might be a while before I can think of “grassroots” again in a positive light. The real thing is far more sinister than the metaphor 😉 Good luck with the wine making!