Making Marmalade from Heirloom Oranges

An orange grove was planted here at The Drip in 1880.  Extraordinarily these trees still bear fruit one hundred and thirty years later.

We are not sure what variety these trees are but they are much more sour than modern oranges, with a taste akin to Seville Oranges.  

They therefore make the best marmalade. This is one of our regular end of winter projects, stocking up with a year's supply of our own unique orange marmalade.  For more on The Citrus Grove click here

Wildlife from the Munghorn Gap

The Munghorn Gap Nature Reserve adjoining The Drip is home to a great diversity of wildlife.  Famed for the bird-life which attracts birdwatchers from all over the world, The Munghorn Gap is also home to significant populations of marsupials, mammals, reptiles and amphibians.

This Red Necked Wallaby  is one of many who moves between "The Drip" and the adjoining bushland, frequently grazing with a mixed mob including a few Eastern Grey Kangaroos and some Swamp Wallabies.

The best time to view the Wallabies and Kangaroos here is late afternoon.  For more about The Munghorn Gap Bush Walk click here

What's Blooming This Week?

In The Espaliery the Japanese plum trees are now laden with blossom and filled with bees.

This is all very pretty but the reality is that there is too much blossom.  We will need to do massive thinning as the fruit develops to avoid problems.  Small, poor tasting fruit would result if the tree attempted to mature this large a crop.  In addition, excess fruit falling on the ground will become a source of fruit fly infestation.

A longer term solution would be changing our pruning protocols to leave fewer fruiting spurs.

The Future of The Garden Room.

We used a photograph of last night's bonfire to create a Photoshop mockup of the design for the wall of  "The Garden Room".  Although we are loving this unroofed space in its current form the idea of one day creating a huge kitchen and living room is also attractive.  And anyway it is fun playing around with design ideas.

This wall faces north-west so the single most important factor affecting the design is the need to screen the hot afternoon sun in summer whilst allowing it to penetrate in winter.  Our current thinking is that the small square windows high in the wall allow easy shuttering when needed, while the three narrow slots only allow sun to penetrate in winter and the large door opening out to the pond and fountain in The Octagon will be shielded with a brise soleil.  

A totally different, hi-tech solution could involve the use of double-glazed smart glass in the construction of this wall.  Innovative suggestions would be very useful at this stage as we are in no rush and time spent on developing the final design could lead to an awesome outcome.

The End of Winter.

A big "Thank You" goes to Peter Marshall, Jay Fraser, Helena Stein, Martin Rule, Nicholas Vale and Garry Jarrett for helping collect lots of scrap timber to build a bonfire and then joining us for a meal.  The warmth from fire was amazing and the house looked quite spectacular in the firelight.


Each year for the past few years we have had a huge bonfire in the large pit in the centre of The Main Courtyard.  It was a delightful way to mark the end of winter.

This could be the last of these bonfire nights as we are thinking of starting work on  the transformation of the pit into a circular pond, surrounded by a raised Octagon, which will become the central feature of the The Main Courtyard.  For more on The Octagon click here.

Self Seeding Poppies

 

One of the features of The Old Cottage Garden in Spring is the spectacular display of poppies.  

These self seeded annuals reappear year after year and as time goes by we are developing our own unique colour strains.  The original red "Gallipoli" poppies and a number of heirloom varieties, in tones orange, white and purple, purchased years ago from from The Diggers Club are now cross-pollinating and each season brings new delights and surprises.

At this time of year weeding becomes a bit tricky as we carefully pick out the poppies from other self seeded "weeds".  Hopefully as time goes by we will have fewer undesirables in this garden.  For more on The Old Cottage Garden click here

The First Asparagus of the Season

The first asparagus shoots are emerging in The Espaliery telling us that  Spring is definitely on the way.

The asparagus bed is now four years old and we expect to be harvesting huge amounts from now on even though it is still  crucial that we leave one third of the crop from each crown unharvested to rebuild vigour for next year.  During this growing period the plants need generous watering so we will be re-setting the irrigation timers to achieve the moisture levels necessary to ensure fast growth and tender shoots. We never bother buying the rather sad looking bunches that are available year round from the big supermarkets, much preferring to eat asparagus only during its season of growth here in our own garden.

A generous feed with fresh compost at this time and at the end of the picking season will keep things moving along.  For more on The Espaliery click here