The lookout...
and the bunya tale continues!
When I suggested in last week’s post (tongue in cheek!) that I’d need to place someone on ‘lookout duty’ as I made a dash to retrieve the cones from underneath the boughs of the Bunya pine, this particular image fleetingly popped into my head; and I couldn’t resist asking the girls to dig it out for me, for truly…one must be as alert in the pursuit of Bunya cone collection, as one might be were there tigers in the vicinity!
Which was perhaps the inspiration for this long-ago image - one of a raft whose narratives Bonnie would draw and plan out at great length, often coaxing her sister to dress up and play the character she was seeking to portray. This would inevitably mean raiding the dress-up box and on many occasions, as her passion for dreaming up quirky scenarios for photography proliferated, involve the entire family, sometimes stretching to godparents and kind friends willing to be roped into the fun too. The dramatics of Bonnie’s final school year, during which photography played a significant role, were so numerous I could fill today’s entire post and then some, with the antics she employed to bring her ideas to fruition! For a hint…I once persuaded a fish monger in Sydney to save the skeleton (fish-head and tail in tact) of a very big Atlantic salmon; which next day joined half a dozen cabbages, a squeaky old wheelbarrow, a ladder, a length of bamboo and various other props in the back of the car. Then along with Bonnie’s good friend Edwina, clad in a tutu (who has indeed gone on to become a wildly successful international model) we set off on a long and winding drive down the escarpment to Lake Illawarra. Well might you imagine the odour that accompanied us not just on our way there…but all the way home too! Then there was the dash Larry and I made to the Collector Pumpkin Festival (about 2 hours drive away) in the ute, to collect a huge prizewinning specimen that filled the entire ute ‘tray’, and the following weekend had to be dragged up neighbour farmer Rowan’s hill by tractor; and the weekend I spent baking bread, making cakes and jellies and I can’t even remember what else, then transporting the entire substantial spread (very slowly in case each precious prop should crash) to a very particular local landscape belonging to kind and generous friends, where the gradient of a hill was just ‘so’ that it might give the impression Edwina was flying on a broomstick! Oh my….what a year that was!
While there are too many to list here, the most tumultuous of all was the day Edwina almost floated away, as she stood in an old trunk engulfed by a bounty of ‘treasure’ as if washed up on the sand at the rocky end of a beach…whilst B waited for just the right wave to crash and spray as a backdrop. Truly my heart raced as the trunk began to swirl with the last outgoing wave…what was I going tell Edwina’s mother? I could just imagine the headlines! But then nothing ever phased Edwina…(not even tipping a bucket of water on her from an overhead second storey window while she clutched a hapless chicken!). I wish I had copies of Bonnie’s final images but I don’t…she took them on film and anyway, they’re hers to share. I have though, just located a few I snapped behind the scenes, and am even more horrified that in that particular ‘trunk’ instance, I allowed them to continue - but then each of them was as determined as the other in the pursuit of achieving the intended outcome!
But back to the Bunyas…
As it was, I risked a repetitive collection, one at a time, of half a dozen from directly underneath the tree on a very calm evening earlier this week. Phew…I thought. My stack on the verandah table was increasing from the original three that had nestled into the grass at a distance from the tree - those ones I’d gathered without hesitation, imagining they’d rolled to their location. Then at pretty much the exact same time next day, Clemmie came rushing in to the kitchen with a “did you hear that?” “Did you see that”?
“See what?” said I. It would seem she first heard the rush from her position on the verandah…a rustle that gathered momentum; but by the time she registered what the sound was, only witnessed the very last centimetres of the load of six drop to the ground…and bounce! And then again the same thing this morning! Why oh why am I never in the right place at the right time to see this spectacle for myself? On the other hand perhaps I should re-think; re-phrase and simply thank the good Lord I was nowhere nearby!
I’ve yet to pick up the latest falls but Clemmie did a count this morning and says we now have 29; with still more at the top, though we have only 28 here, as the lovely local botanical artist I mentioned last week did indeed come to visit yesterday, prepared with a thick towel in which to load and protect the precious cargo she had come to choose. After serious inspection of all specimens, off she went with her well-wrapped choice, and I am so excited to see the stages she captures of the cone’s progress - as alongside the research she plans to undertake. She’s in for surprise after surprise as the cone she now has ripens, and eventually splits apart.
In the meantime, what a lovely backdrop the cones have made for this week’s simple, mid-summer verandah lunches, where we’ve had the fun of welcoming family and friends, young and old, from afar.
Sumptuous Greek salads have been taking centre stage and although I can’t yet claim the tomato component to be my own…they are coming (or the olives or fetta!); the cucumbers surely are! Up ‘til about ten or so years ago, I really wasn’t familiar with the ‘Crystal Apple’ variety of cucumber. An Australian heirloom, one year I picked up a seedling at the market by mistake, and what a mistake to make! During their early growth phase, while the vine is getting established, should tiny fruit appear I’m inclined to pick those morsels no bigger than a finger nail and eat them on the spot (one of those very special treats for the gardener!). But once the vine gets a move on, I allow the fruit to grow on and during the last couple of weeks, since the bout of rain gave them a boost, all the cucumbers (long and Lebanese too) have become prolific.
Last weekend I spent some time sorting out the tangle the cucumbers had got themselves into during the heatwave and subsequent rain. Upon removing all the sunburnt leaves I was delighted to find enough growth on some vines to coax them at last (usually I’d get them to a good height well before Christmas) up some strings, where they have a much better chance of good airflow, thereby causing the entire vine to be more healthy and productive - hence the bounty of fruit this week.
How fun it’s been to be back in the kitchen and with friends at the table, after all the sorting and washing the month of January has brought. I only wish I could tell you I’d completed the task, afterall, January is about to be February…and I haven’t!
There is so much more beauty occurring in the kitchen garden. Where during the course of the last ten days or so, the individual outer bracts of the corn ‘tassels’ have been tinged that shade of pinkish, reddish brown of which I’m so enamoured; during the last couple of days they’ve opened to reveal their inner pollen-carrying stamens…so where that colour was to be seen erupting profusely from the stem above…
Now instead, it’s to be found below - in the shaggy silks that have opened at the top of each newly formed, fine corncob-to-be. Now all we need is the breeze to cause the pollen overhead to dance and spill onto the tip of each thread below. You can see in the image above, where one has landed just so.
To my delight, a recently planted Feverfew has exploded into a sea of delicate yellow-centred, daisy-like flowers; amidst a froth of newly opened, blue Borage flowers. The borage I’ve had here forever and a day, but as a general rule I wouldn’t expect such a proliferation at this time of year…they usually do better here in the winter, so I’m not entirely sure what’s going on, but I’m certainly not complaining! The feverfew on the other hand, is new; and I have no good excuse for not having planted it years and years ago. It’s one I’ve always meant to plant and occasionally stumble upon an unopened seed packet - always at the wrong time of year supposedly, to sow. And so I leave it thinking I’ll do so later…and then somehow find the packet still there same time next year! When I mentioned this to Thalia one day she said she had it everywhere and was weeding it out and would I like some? “Yes please” I said. “You’ll regret it” said she. Well yes…I have many of those but I’ve no objection to weeding out something when it’s the result of something I want to grow! So simple as it is, I’m thrilled to bits with the display on this very first specimen to grow here, of feverfew!
While I think of fledgling seedlings ‘popping up’, I’ve noticed these last few days a number of very fine new fennel ones, about which I’m thrilled. Some of the fennel plants that have been growing for years have become so old and woody, they need to be replaced. A handful have died during the course of these last weeks - not that anyone else would notice there’s such an abundance of them, and as their bases rot out, I’ll tease them from the throng in the knowledge their replacements are growing on nearby all of their own accord. A happy and natural cycle.
Down the back, lovely things are happening too. I haven’t rigged up the shade for a couple of weeks but the garden’s under sail again today. Last time I had the nets over this section, the corn was so tiny I didn’t have to think, but yesterday I found myself searching for the means to prop the net ever higher, as the corn in this run has well exceeded the height of the tomato stakes used to support the dahlias next door! A handy length of bamboo was easy to plunge into the damp earth though, so although everyone will still wilt in the heat, hopefully they won’t scorch…and this time, the earth is hydrated.
How I love ‘down the back’! Ostensibly the part other peeps don’t see (there’s nothing here that no-one sees!), it’s where the washing line as well as the potting shed and wood storage are. Over the years all manner of spontaneous planting has occurred down here and when I asked Thalia to divide some of the ornamental gingers in the pots ‘between the wings’ last year and she seemed to have a surplus of rhizomes after her re-planting exercise, she asked what to do with them. As I really don’t need more pots, I had a think and (it’s the kind of thought Larry hates!) pondered the little space between the last of the three sinks that rest against the slab wall of the tractor shed and the first bay of kindling storage. It’s always just gathered grass and weeds and so…I wondered? “Just clear it and add some compost and pop them in” I said to Thalia, hoping no-one would notice. I faithfully watered them during those first months then left well alone during the winter, but began giving them a drop each morning once the weather warmed. We had no idea which variety they were as they all got muddled; but during these last days buds have been forming and today…we have the answer!
Of course part of my thinking in plonking them down the back, was that I might get some flower spikes to pick for the house, as it wouldn’t matter if they went missing from that corner. That’s how one ought to think of ‘down the back’. But of course I don’t! I knew full well that if they flowered there, against the aged, patinated ironbark slabs salvaged from the original dwelling here, they would look exquisite and just right, as if they’d been there forever. And so now I don’t want to pick them at all! And yet I do…maybe I will pick that first one tonight, so it doesn’t bake in tomorrow’s heat that is expected to be worse than today…there’s an excuse anyway, and how I would love to have the scent of this beauty filling filling my nostrils in the house! Let alone the sight of it. But where? Kitchen? Bedroom? Bathroom? Gallery? I really need to plant a vast swathe of them so I can fill each room of the house!
Scent is filling every pocket of the garden as one roams…and roam I did yesterday, with a darling visitor, the friend of a friend. And it was she this time, who stopped us both dead in our tracks - usually it’s me! “What is that?” she asked and the two of us followed our noses round in circles. Seconds earlier I had picked up the ephemeral hint of osmanthus that faded as quickly as I noted it, mid-sentence; but we were near the half-open stable door to the pool and so the deep frangipani perfume was spilling through that building from the far side and we were standing next to a barrow of rosemary clippings! “Gardenia?” she offered…but we were a distance from the courtyard where those pinwheel flowers were still spinning on the thunbergia. And then I saw it - the cluster of waxy flowers on the Murraya hedge! “That’s it” she shrieked with delight! A once-Aussie girl who has lived a lifetime in England. “Do you think I could grow it over there?”. Well…maybe as an indoor specimen! Or somewhere protected. I’m hopeful she’ll give it a try and let me know…for these are the things for us all, that bring with them floods of memories.
As we roamed, I noticed the first of the figs had coloured…although their short stalks were still holding each fruit stiffly aloft. Just a few more hours of sunlight though and…the evening pick announced fig season to be officially here!
Whilst just three luscious peaches have, one at a time these last days, filled the kitchen with the sweetest, peachiest perfume you might imagine!
On a funny note to end, just because it made me laugh and may cause you to do the same: when I went to post my evening ‘pick’ on insta yesterday, I discovered at the top of my feed (thanks to Arthur Parkinson) this utterly divine excerpt of Helena Bonham Carter in Seven Dials. Looks like it’s a new adaptation and although I’m not entirely sure I’m keen to revisit that Agatha Christie story (doesn’t that one have rather too many gruesome murders?????) it’s just shot to the top of my ‘must watch’ list…purely for the sake of Helena’s performance!
Sending warmest wishes to everyone for the week ahead.
Mickey x
Eating from the garden:
Potatoes, aubergines, carrots, coloured chard, warrigal greens, mizuna, chicory (planting these last two this season was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made!), cucumber, zucchini, lettuce, rocket, rhubarb, garlic and onions (the last two stored from the spring harvest). Peaches and figs! Lovage, mint, chives, parsley, rosemary, sage, thyme. Fennel pollen, fresh fennel seeds, poppy seeds, nigella seeds (these last two saved), chive flowers. I just know there’s something else I keep meaning to mention…but I cannot think what it is…
Going / gone: chive flowers, fennel fronds, amaranth leaves (though I’m hoping for another flush of the latter after the rain…so I said last week and indeed there are some more popping up but they’ll likely be baked today and tomorrow!)
Seed saving: nigella, carrot
Sowing: if we do get showers of rain on Sunday/Monday, I feel inclined to scatter carrot seed in odd pockets down the back, for the purpose of encouraging a wild and unkempt effect down the track…Also, the first of the zucchinis planted is romping now from south to north as predicted and I feel inclined to sow seeds around its naked stem…food for thought!
Planting: nothing - my friends weren’t at the market last week but will be next, so I’ll not plant ‘til I see them then, when more chicory and mizuna will be on my list, amongst lettuce seedlings and maybe, depending on the weather, a brassica or two.
Ornamental garden notes:
Picking for the house: roses, frangipani, Gardenia thunbergia, dahlia and maybe, just maybe…ginger!
Perfumes and aromas: Gardenia thunbergia, frangipani, fig leaf, osmanthus fragrans, murraya, Chinese star jasmine (although not as full as the first flush there are enough little flowers threaded through to note their scent), as there are Port Wine Magnolias. And grandifloras, and a few jasmine sambac and stephanotis and of course tansy…and apple pelargonium (see below)
Pruning and other: the week began with lawn-gutter clearing as it hadn’t been done in awhile, with a good rake of the front courtyard gravel. The vetiver grass in the corner of the field had its annual cut and the field paths had a weed and rake. The pool beds had a weed and tidy and spent frangipani flowers are regularly swept to the corners for weekly collection . Thalia has just removed all the spent flower trails of apple pelargonium (hence their perfume filling the air!) and the rosemary that underpins the citrus next to the kitchen verandah has just had a mid-season cut so it doesn’t get straggly - it’s been a bit of a primping kind of week…and so the compost heap grows!
What a wonderful and inspiring post. I live through you. Your garden is my garden (my balcony is somewhat restricting and there is no ‘down the back’!). But I can collect cones, rocks, sticks and bring nature inside, and cook, lay a table … often led by something I’ve read here. Thank you for your generosity.
Bouncing bunyas! Oh la la!