The Colour Purple

This summer we've been blessed with purple abundance. Our grinadella plant, now in its second year of bearing fruit has gone wild! At one point between 1 and 6 grinadellas were falling off the bush per day! They made stunning sweet and fragrant gifts for friends and family and towards the end of summer I finally stopped giving them away to enjoy the fruits of my labour!

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Then came the brinjal (eggplant - the one pictured below is our very first one harvested). Mom donated two plants to me (along with loads of other plants) after the body corporate at her home told her that she could no longer have a veggie patch :( Amazingly, the plants survived and THRIVED! We harvested so many that I lost count and it has been an incredible journey learning about this veg and experimenting in the kitchen with new dishes. It is more versatile than you would think and even my hubby took to it! (Thank you Mom!)

Out of the two olive trees we planted approx two years ago, only one decided it was happy and remained (the other was relocated to my brother's house) . As you can see below, it also bore fruit in numbers this summer. Last summer (its first), it only produced one or two small olives. This summer it produced 54 big juicy olives! (yes, I counted, and just look at how big these babies are!)

Spinach seeds

I've always wanted to know how to harvest spinach seeds but didnt know what to look out for in a 'seeding' plant.  Finally, this past spring, one of my spinach plants made it abundantly clear to me.  It slowed down with producing leaves but grew into this tall unattractive weed-looking tower. It was seeding! I left it to do its thing and when I noticed it was pretty dried out/dead, I pulled the entire stalk out of the ground and hung it upside down in a dry place. After a few hot dry weeks, I started harvesting the seeds.  The way to tell the seeds apart from the other similar looking 'duds', is by touch and sight.  The seeds are usually slightly bigger and more tan-brown than greyish-brown, and they are much harder/firmer (i.e. they don't crumble when you roll them between your fingers).  You will get enough seeds off one bush to supply the whole neighbourhood! :) [pictured below, on the strand I am holding, the seed is the one positioned in the middle of my middle finger... and so are the loose ones you see resting in between my fingers.]

First olive harvest - Patience pays off

I couldn't wait any longer... I was so excited to bottle my first batch of 54 olives. Making the brine solution was a learning experience in itself.  I watched a video on youtube which said I should add salt to water until an egg floats in it and that is when the brine solution is salty enough.  My first egg had a crack in it so there I was adding salt until the entire house's salt was used up... and still no floating egg! LOL! In future, will rather go by recipe instead of the 'egg' method! ;)  Now, ....to wait 6? months before I can taste them!!

Grinnie in her prime

A Thrifty yet Surprisingly Fruitful Season

Even though this year I was disappointed in that I did not accomplish what I planned to due to lack of time and money, I was amazed at just how much I DID accomplish without having to spend a cent! I managed to relocate the patch to this open area running downhill, along side the olive tree/grinadella bush.  The past winter's compost heap provided excellent compost for good growing conditions and I was blessed enough to receive mom's donation of plants.  Aside from the brinjals, another new experience was growing sage.  It is an awesome plant, but sadly did not make it to the end of summer for some reason.  The time which I had to enjoy it was another great learning experience. For the first time, I started using it in my cooking and could not believe how useful it actually is.  It went great with brinjal and other veggie dishes, adding a delicious 'meaty' rich flavour. I can't wait to start growing it again!  As for the home-made compost, it served another purpose in that pumpkin /squash seeds came up and these plants, (although they did not really fruit),  provided a great 'mulch' like / canopy protection against the heat and sun and also filled up empty spaces between other plants which kept the weeds in check and also helped keep Fidget (our cat) out. I also grew green pepper, although not very successfully (they would not get big and also seemed to get eaten by something as soon as they did start getting big).  In early summer, we had loads of lettuce for making summer salads and loads of mint for late afternoon mohitos by the pool and reviving morning smoothies. Two 'late' cherry tomato plants (which came from "surprise" seedlings growing in my worm farm!) were the stars of the show when all else had retired, blessing us with loads of plump flavourful fruit up to this very day. Oh, and of course, I mustn't forget good old faithful spinach, predictably supplying us throughout the whole year with dark green nutritious leaves. (The one thing I did buy was coriander and basil seedlings, the coriander was active early summer and the basil supplied us with enough leaves to make 3 large batches of pesto for freezing in ice cubes in anticipation of upcoming winter thai green curries).

Mystery Birds

These beauties have been gracing us with their presence every year since we moved in 3 years ago.  They seem to travel in groups of about 3 to 7 and they come to our yard to secretly visit in our two potato bushes.  They have these gorgeous long tails and peaked heads and we usually see them late afternoons in certain times of spring summer and fall.  Can anybody help me by telling me what kind of birds they are? I'm so fascinated by them and would love to know!