Nature Flower Arrangement - Flowering Nasturtium Trellis Border

The Nasturtium trellis is flowering. They look so pretty. This is what I see when I look out the window to my backyard. I can't believe it's finally happening.

Now they just need to meet in the middle and hopefully grow overlapping so the flowers colour will mix.

The orange one is taking ages for some reason, maybe not enough sunlight on that spot. 

Broad Beans Pods Hopefully Soon!!

Counting the days (or maybe weeks?) Until I can harvest these pods. But, they are finally here and growing bigger and bigger each day.

And there are smaller pods starting to grow too.

Collecting Flowers for Tea

What nature gives I shall not waste...

Collecting flowers over the weekend, just before the wild Melbourne wind thrashes them around. I'm not planning to make more oil infusion for the near future so these will be dried for tea.

Super fragrant rose, Pope John Paul II. It's humongous as well. They are growing bigger every year.

I believe these are called Double Delight. They are not as fragrant but have pretty colours.

Lot of Calendula of course, they grow like weed in the garden, beneficial weed of course. They are also easy to control/weed out and if the flowers are collected early, then the seed spread can be minimised.

My trustee Lavender bushes that keep giving. The bees love them to bits and I have to trim them to keep the bees from scraping my son.

I gave the Calendula a bit of a wash in cold water before drying them lightly with tea towel and arranging them in drying tray.

I got to the roses before the bugs did so minimal washing went into this, only a bit of wipe with tea towels to shop away the odd bugs.

I also trimmed my Japanese Buxus and propagating more of them from the semi hard stems. I managed to get around a dozen new rooted cuttings last time, transplanted them, only to get the pulled out. They are positioned at the very front of the garden so I'm guessing it could be dogs. Anyways, I've propagated them successfully a few times so I'm sure I can do it again. But they take ages!!

Beneficial Plant, Lavender. Good for us and the bees.

My trustee Lavender bushes that keep on giving. Not only they give me their flowers but the stems can be propagated. I just love these plants as they are beneficial for the bees and bugs in the garden and they are beneficial for us as well. 

I collected a few flowers this morning, while leaving some for the bees.

Nurtured Lavender stem cuttings growing over winter:

Lots of roots and ready for transplant:

Spring Seedlings 2020 - Finally time to plant them out in the garden.

Last weekend was the last cold snap in Melbourne, so it was finally time to plant these tiny seedlings in the garden. The weather is warm and gentle enough for the seedlings to survive. And they are so eager to be outdoor, the zucchini and pumpkin seedlings are tall and robust.

Red Russian Kale:

Cimmaron Lettuce:

Cos Lettuce:

Perpetual Spinach:

Beefsteak Tomatoes and Black Beauty Eggplant:

Herbs, parsley, coriander, sage, basil, rosemary and oregano:

Kent Pumpkin and Lebanese Cucumber:

Zucchini and Butternut Pumpkin:

Snow Peas Plants that Keep on Giving.

Snow Peas party in the household last week. These plants keep on giving. So grateful for them...

Nasturtium Trellis and Finally Some Broad Beans Pods

Since we've been working from home I've noticed the Nasturtium bushes are growing rapidly during winter and they finally reached a good height for me to train them along the horizontal trellis along the fence. This has been a long awaited moment and it's finally happening. It looks like it won't take long until they reach the whole length of the fence. I'm so excited.

Some of our broadband are finally showing some seedpods as well. Lots of new flowers are popping out as well so maybe we'll get a good harvest this year. 

Finally Some Snow Peas! Spring is Here!

Finally a bowl of snow peas from the garden. The long awaited pods were very welcomed in our household. We've been enjoying the pretty white flowers for a few weeks now and they have finally turned into pods.

My Little Helper Made Paper Seedling Pots For Me (Burgon & Ball Paper Pot Maker)

Super late post, this is my little helper rolling paper seedling pots for our Spring seedlings. I bought this paper pot maker a few months ago and it has been amazingly helpful in making these paper pots. I previously used shot glass 😂 to make them.

The Burgon & Ball paper pot maker has 3 sizes and perfect for those larger seedlings, such as zucchini, cucumber and pumpkin.

The steps are super easy even a six year old can do it.

Mid Week Fresh Cooking: Broccoli Leaves Pesto Fettucini, Chickpea Garden Salad Sandwich and Lentil Daal.

Our mid week fresh cooking last week was super quick and simple to prepare.

I used the last harvest of broccoli florets and leaves from the front garden and made pesto for a quick vegetarian lunch. 

For the next day, I soaked some dried chickpeas and boiled them before crushing them with a bit of canned chopped tomato, lettuce leaves, parsley and mayo. I paired that with lettuce and kale leaves from the garden for a quick sandwich.

The majority of the canned chopped tomato went into this yummy vegetarian dinner of lentil daal. I used lots of onion and ginger for this to support our immunity during the cold blast in Melbourne during that time.

Early Asahi Tulips and White Californian Poppy.

The first Asahi Tulip had popped up in our garden. Their stems look short this year for some reason. I didn't pull the bulbs out of the garden from last year, so it looks like they grown in a bit of a cluster this year. I'm excited to see how they look, but I think I will pull out the bulbs this year and replant them, spread them around the garden. I absolutely love the colour of this Asahi Tulip. 

My daffodil tete-a-tete had also popped up. They're so tiny and cute this year. I need to to pull up the bulbs as well and spread them around the garden.

Another favourite of mine in the recent years have been these Californian Poppies that I planted under the Olive Tree. I bought them as seeds of mix colour, they're gorgeous but their seed pods spread the seeds all over the garden, haha. So it's really hard to keep them in one spot.

This is the first poppy this year:

There will be more coming up and that section of the front yard is going to burst with colour.

Meet Our New Garden Tenant!!

My wish had come true!!! I finally have a ladybird in the backyard, yay!!! I was having a break from work and wandering around the backyard to check the plants and saw something tiny crawling near the Nasturtium bushes. I'm so excited!!

I hope there's a whole family of them in there somewhere.

They're supposed to be the natural predators of aphids. Come to think of it I don't see any aphids around the garden maybe the ladybirds have been eating them.

Keep Calm and Drink Tea. Lemon and Calendula Tea That Is!

I have been feeling a bit under the weather in the last few days. My tropical genes is struggling with the sudden chilly winter blast this last week. I started to have a bit of sniffle and cough. 

This homemade immunity booster tea is my go to drink to help alleviate the cold symptoms. I made quite a few at the start of winter to prepare for this kind of situation and we have been brewing them as needed. 

I added a few dried Calendula flowers in it. It was very refreshing and I'm glad to report that I am now feeling better.

Indonesian Chicken Congee, Bubur Ayam, with Homemade Spring Onion Pancake.

I can't wait until Winter is over!! It's cold and rainy in Melbourne this weekend, so Bubur Ayam is our go to meal for this kind of weather. Bubur amAyam is Indonesian version of Congee. This particular one is a cut down version (Covid-19 Lockdown version) of the actual thing. 

The original version has lots of yummy condiments that always makes me drool just thinking about it. 

For today though, I decided to defeat my demon and try to work with dough (aarrgghh...). Found this recipe for Spring Onion Pancake and decided to give it a go. 

This is the clear chicken stock and the shredded chicken breast that I prepared yesterday as part of our weekly meal prep.

I use half a cup of white rice and simmer it in rolling boiling water and the added stock until they soften. I didn't put the shredded chicken until the last 5 minutes or so of the cooking process to keep them tender.

The Spring Onion Pancake is a pleasantly surprising success despite my doubt of my skill. It's a great replacement of Chinese Crullers which is our favourite but requires deep frying process.

I'm saving this awesome recipe for next time.

Meal Prep This Week: Chicken Stock for Soup and Indonesian Chicken Congee, Soya Chicken for Indonesian Fried Noodle, Vietnamese Inspired Meatball for Vermicelli Salad and Turkey and Vegetable Potato Bake.

This week we were lucky enough to get a tray of chicken breast after a few weeks of empty poultry section in the store. So for my meal prep this week I'm stretching these 2 pieces of breast to make 3 dishes. The minced meat that we managed to get this week is Turkey mince. I'm going to use this 1 tray of minced meat to cook up 2 dishes.

We also have a birthday coming up. So, I set aside a small portion of the chicken breast to make soy chicken which will go into the traditional staple Indonesian Birthday fried noodles.

This goes into the freezer to be cooked with noodle and lots of vegetable later on this week.

The remaining of the chicken breast was used in clear chicken stock. Half will be the base of chicken and vegetable soup during the week. I diced the chicken breast before freezing them.

The other half of the chicken breast was shredded to make Indonesian Chicken Congee.

I used a third of the Turkey mince to make a bake dish inspired by Indonesian Pastel Tutup and the sausage, meat and rice bake by KidsCookBest.

I parboiled the sliced potato to reduce the oven cooking time of the dish.

We had this for our lunch 🤗.

The remaining turkey minced went into Vietnamese inspired meatball to be served with vermicelli salad mid week.