Tomatoes Galore!

I really do have to write about my tomatoes as they have just gone beserk this year!

I did quite a bit of reading in the spring when I planted my seeds to ensure that I grew a spectacular crop but little did I know that I was in for much more than that!

You may have all read about that guy who reckons that he has the magic technique for growing the best crop of tomatoes (Called: Organic Tomato Magic) Well I was determined to give it a try regardless of all bad press he seems to get as I found a download of his technique here for free.  Not everyone believes it but after loads of reading I have come to believe that he is on the right track.  It seems that the technique of pruning back your tomato plants creates bushier and more fruitful plants!  According to the old Italian way they used to prune back the leaves and this made the plant put all of its energy into fruit.

I, of course, rushed out to my glasshouse as soon as I read this (before reading everyone else's opinions) and cut back all the leaves off my plants below the first branch of flowers. This left the main leaves on top like giant solar panels. My plants looked awful to begin with, I thought that maybe I had been a little hasty in my pruning as the leaves started to shrivel up and go all curly.  The plants looked terrible for the first week.

But then the magic occurred.  My plants started to produce huge amounts of flowers, I keep trimming back the leaves below the flowers and bingo all the energy goes into the plant instead of the leaves. It really works.  Then you can trim the top to stop them growing too tall and get a second crop from new shoots coming off the main branches.

So in summary:

• Once the first branch of flowers appears prune off all the lower leaves below the flowering branch.
• Keep doing this each time a new flower branch appears.
• Cut off the little side shoots at each leaf junction as well
• Really water your plants, not just a hand water - give them a soaking and every couple of days mix up some liquid blood and bone and water and feed this to each plant. (Nitrosol is easily bought from your local supermarket).  This keeps your plant healthy.
• I have heard egg shells are great to sprinkled around the base of the plant and comfry leaves are an amazing natural tomato compost. I also use tomato food every few weeks sprinkled around the top soil and water it well in.

Please let me know if you have any other special tips I can add to this.

Another great technique is shown on this French website where they shown you diagramatically how to prune you plants to generate bigger crops. You'll get the general idea. Ill translate it and make a new post to explain the technique.

You can see how I have trimmed back all of the leaves at the base of the plant.
I still have a lot more trimming to do as the plants are fruiting like crazy at this level!

This is the result at the top where the plants are flowering profusely and I have to yet again do some more pruning of the leaves. I have cut the tops of each plant before they touched the roof so will allow for some lateral growth and a second crop of flowers.

View from glasshouse door. You cant see much fruit as it is all green but under the mid section leaves it is brimming with fruit.  It is now time for me to prune back the mid section leaves to below the top section flowers.

Christmas Gingerbread

This has to be my favorite time of year when it comes to the garden but also to kitchen as it is a time of making and baking! As I prepared myself well for my Christmas cheese platter by making plenty of cheese well in advance I had the pleasure of just plain and simple home baking. Filling the tins and making treats for family and friends. My favorite is always gingerbread and you can do so many things with it and it is a treat that everyone likes. My children just love it and love to decorate gingerbread men knowing that they will be eating them!

This recipe makes a lot of gingerbread so you can halve it if you like!

Perfectly delicious Gingerbread Recipe:

200g Butter
120g Soft Brown Sugar (Firmly Packed)
280g Golden Syrup
720g Plain Flour
3 tsp Ground Ginger
3 tsp Ground Cinnamin
3 tsp Ground Cassia
1 tsp Ground Cloves
3 tsp Baking Soda
2 Eggs (Beaten)
1.5 tsp Vanilla Extract (Essence)

Royal Icing:

2 Egg whites
250g Icing Sugar (more or less for firmness, etc)
Food Colouring, cachous and decorations as required

• Preheat your oven to 180 degrees Celcius
• Melt Butter, Golden Syrup and sugar in a pot and let it cool for 5 mins
• Mix dry ingredients together and add melted mixture, beaten egg and extract. Mix well.
• Knead the dough and roll to about a 5mm thickness between two baking sheets (waxed paper or teflon sheets work well and saves adding more flour!)
• Cut out your shapes and place on your oven trays (using baking paper or teflon sheets is the best)
• Bake for around 10-15 mins depending on how light or dark you like them.
• Decorate with Royal Icing 

Ready to eat!

The big count.

Microgreens Kit Instructions

We are super pleased to let you know that we can now supply you with a special kit for growing microgreens at home! It is now available on our website HERE!

In the the Microgreens Kit you get:  2 x Growing Trays, 5 x Growing Pads, A Starter Seed Pack and Instructions.

The unique growing pads have been sourced from the USA and are specifically designed for growing microgreens, they are super absorbent and you can throw them in the recycling bin when you have finished. Once you buy our kit you can buy the growing pads from us separately which makes this super economical.  One growing pad grows an awful amount of microgreens in one hit! You can also cut them into strips and grow different seeds side by side in the same tray.

Microgreens are super expensive to buy so get cracking with this kit and grow them at home cheaply and experience the taste sensation of growing your own.

The instructions are simple, check out how to grow them below!

Place your growing pad in the tray.
Saturate your growing pad and sprinkle seeds on top.
Mist the surface of the mat to ensure that the seeds
settle into the growing media.
Place cover over your tray.
Ensure growing media is kept super moist until germination,
this can be achieved by misting the seeds and mat 2-3 times
a day until germination.

3 days - Seeds Germinating.
Remove Tray Lid and expose to sunlight.
Keep growing pad saturated (not swimming!) at all times.

7 days - Seeds fully sprouted and growing!
Continue to mist your microgreens and keep moist.

At 7 Days.

This was a little experiment, growing microgreens in pure Vermiculite
in cheap flower bulb trays, placed in a tray with a little water in
the bottom.  The seeds sprouted well and this is the result!
You can buy Vermiculite from Mitre 10, Bunnings, etc and
the bulb trays come from any of the above or nursery.

Dont forget to visit our website for more great home harvesting products!

www.urbancheese.co.nz

Elderflower Cordial!

Our gorgeous Elderflower Cordial ready to leave for 48 hrs!

My girls watch out each year for the Elderflower to spring into bloom along the river. They get excited about going picking as they know the result is a delicious summer drink that they love.

Yesterday I prepared the sugar syrup and allowed it to cool and today was the day to go down and pick the flowers.

The best time of the day to pick your Elderflowers is when the sun is shining, this is supposed to be when it is at its best for flavour.  Sadly today was the only day we have been able to go and storm clouds gathered so we made a dash to the river to quickly pick what we needed.  My youngest was first to the door with a pair of scissors ready to pick. We use scissors so as to cause as little damage to the flower head as possible, cutting just below where the flowers fork out from the flower stem.  You want as little stem as possible as the stems may alter the flavour.

An Elderflower Head

We managed to get more than we needed and made a run for it as the clouds burst upon us. My daughter made an interesting little comment as we gathered the flower heads by saying her hands were sticky..... this is exactly what happens as if you look really closely at each flower it has a nice little dollop of nectar sitting on top. This of course gets on your hands as you are picking.

On return to the kitchen my daughter went to pick 4 big fat juicy lemons off our tree and continued to grate the rind off each lemon gently. We then cut up all of the lemons into wedges and popped them into the sugar syrup along with the rind.  This was followed by the citric acid and the Elderflowers.

Then a good stir, cover the pot and leave for 48 hours.  You can stir from time to time of course and check to see how it is going.

She loves to pick!

Here is our recipe, super simple and super delicious!

Elderflower Cordial

30-40 Small Elderflower Heads (or 20-30 large)
1.3 kg white sugar
2 litres of water
60 grams Citric Acid
3 lemons

Day 1: Place your 1.3 kg sugar in a pot or glass bowl and cover with 2 litres of boiling water: Stir and dissolve all of the sugar - allow to cool.

Day 2: Grate the rind of 5 lemons and cut the remainder of the lemons into wedges, popping both into the sugary syrup: Stir.  Add the citric acid and then the Elderflowers: Stir again. Cover your creation with a cloth and stir from time to time over the next 48 hours.

Day 4: Strain your liquid through a muslin cloth into cold STERLIZED jars or bottles.  Seal the bottles and drink your cordial within 3 months, best kept refrigerated. Great for a Christmas gift!

Added extra: WE made ours with added Rose Water to see what it will taste like... we simmered fragrant rose petals in water from our garden the day before and strained the liquid out from the petals.  The result was a "tea-stained" looking water but smelled divine.  Will keep you posted on what the end result it!

Some people prefer to pop their flowers in the hot sugar syrup but I have done some research and the cordial ends up a very dark colour and not as pretty as the light coloured cordial we are all used to drinking.  Might be worth a try though to see what the flavour is like, it may be more intense?

My wee cherub super happy with her picking!

8 more cheese makers in the world!

Today Eve and I hosted yet another of our cheese an bread making courses. I thoroughly enjoyed my day, thanks to the keen group we had around the table!

Just remember that cheese making is super easy and a great skill to share with your friends once you have mastered the basics.

Cool treats

With children hot and thirsty after school today we made lemon and honey icy treats!

The girls picked the lemons off the tree and with the addition of some honey and a little water to the freshly squeezed lemon it was delicious! The girls love to get involved and come up with ideas on new taste sensations. I bought one of those iceblock makers by "Zoku" last summer and we dug it out of the cupboard yesterday to pop in the freezer ready for some summer action. They really are awesome, making an iceblock in 5 mins out of almost anything you can squeeze, juice or blend. Our favorite is fresh strawberries and yoghurt or bubbly lemonade!

I'll post more pics as we make them through the summer and some other ideas on healthy treats!

Multi Colored Radishes

Radishes are super easy to grow. I pulled these two beauties out of my garden this morning to adorn my delicious fresh cos lettuce salad. Radishes only take a few weeks to grow, I grow some in the garden and some in growing troughs so I can always have a supply when I need them. Great to grow for children as they can almost see them growing in a manner of days!

I buy my radish seeds from Italian Seeds Pronto. They have red radishes and also a super multi coloured radish pack from which I grew these beauties.

About Italian Seeds Pronto 

They are a small-scale business who import and distribute within New Zealand the authentic vegetable and herb seed of Franchi Sementi dal 1783.

All the seeds are packed at Franchi in Bergamo, Northern Italy and not sent as bulk seed to New Zealand for re-packing. This is paramount in ensuring the integrity and purity of the Franchi brand is maintained.

The larger than normal stylish Franchi packets contain a very generous quantity of seed. In most cases more than 3 times that of many seed companies globally. This high seed quantity is normal for Europe. Most are double-sealed for freshness and the 3-year use by date ensures excellent value for money.All prices are GST inclusive.

Visit their website today as their seeds grow amazing plants.

Purple and White Radish

Super crunchy cos

The vege box with rocket, radishes and coriander

all ready for my salad!

Fragrant and delicious basil 

Cos, strawberries and rocket!

VIOLA!!! Le salade de maison - (salad of the house all home grown)

The gift of yoghurt

Yoghurt is just so easy to make! Whipped up a few litres tonight to share with friends. Check out the simple recipe on our website to make beautiful, thick creamy yoghurt. All you need is blue top milk, a saucepan, a couple of tablespoons of your favorite organic yoghurt and a couple of grains of yoghurt culture (optional)..... The result is delicious and your family will love it!

Spring is here!

Spring brings along with it a whole new dimension in home harvesting. Turning over fresh soil, planting summer vegetables, fruits and of course a richer milk supply for making cheese. The cows are back to feeding on pastures so the milk will return a better yield and therefore more cheese can be produced! It is a good time to start preparing some of the quicker maturing cheeses for our Christmas table.

Yesterday I prepared my favorite blue "Fourme d'Ambert" which is ready in a little over 6 weeks. This recipe can be found in our 200 Cheeses Book on our website, it is my cheese recipe bible!! Fourme d'Ambert is a rich creamy blue with a mild bite, just melts in your mouth. I will post pictures of its progress to keep checking back to see how it is going!

A little suggestion when placing your curds in your muslin lined cheese mould: place a baking cooling rack across your sink and then your muslin lined mould on top. You can then pour your curds straight into the mould in one quick action rather than spooning them in. If you wish to keep your whey then pop a collecting container underneath.

Don't forget to use your whey to make ricotta or use it to soak your chook feed in as it is high in protein and an excellent addition to their diet. My chooks love it!