Green veins yellow leaves easily fixed on citrus

It's a manganese deficiency. In Adelaide we get it a lot. Spray with some of this, once a year about now.


Fixed.


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Leeks are ready, and made a brilliant quiche

They've been in for ages, and a couple have just started putting up flower spikes. Ready to come out.


So, stripped and cleaned, they were ready to be chopped and mixed with a heap of other goodies to go into a quiche with 15 of my chookies home laid eggs.


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Buying Beef? Beware Bone Taint

BAck in the old packaging sales days were were taught about seven types of spoilage. Many thanks to that employer for that brilliant commonsense training in food technology.

Most of these spoilage types are pretty well known by us all - putrification, mould, dehydration - yummy. Some others are less well known, like rancidity (oxidation of fats) but you'll pick something is off.

But be really careful of this one. Bone taint. I don't see it much at all on lamb but on beef it really gets up. Especially in these high O2 packs that are the perfect retail case ready solution for beef.



The bone goes dark, and when you've cooked it there's a really odd, horrible smell and flavour. This one on the osso bucco is probably not too bad, but the more dark, the more yuk.

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Messy, but still a good time in the year

All that stuff at the front is rocket that has gone to seed and I've tied up. Soon the seed pods will have dried and I can cut them off, put them in a plastic bag open. The pods will continue to crack and I'll have thousands of seeds to use.


And the lettuce is now all tied up, ready to seed and I'll have thousands of those too. Great lettuce, the leaves are long and the plant grows upwards, it makes the leaves easy to pick, and hardly need rinsing.


Now, with the clear soil it's time to plant those tomatoes that my father in law gave me.

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Smelling the roses

Today, wheeling through the garden:

Some eggs


A varietal of an Angel's trumpet (brugmansia)


And the common variety


I must say the roses are not really worth the photos. They're in the transition from spring flush to hardy summer. Not pretty, but about ready for a cut back and some water.

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Not a crazy cat lady house, yet

A pair of young friends came out to see me the other night but got their suburbs wrong. Same street but one suburb across. When they got to the overgrown garden with six cats in it they began to wonder "something's wrong, Cullen didn't tell us he had cats".


I suspect that one day my house might be that way, but for now it still looks pretty nice. But it is awaiting me getting on top of employment and money so I can get some serious maintenance done. Roof in particular.


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Spring snack - even healthy

One head of broccoli from the garden, microwave for 1min20 spray with some of that Bordeaux wine vinegar spray and some salt.


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Cactus flower to welcome me home

There are some great things about being away. The garden keeps working in my absence. This is the first time this cactus has flowered:


It's quite stunning for a pretty boring little cactus, boring but alluring to me:


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Praise the lord for grandparents

The unacknowledged asset of our day. I'm sitting next to a couple in a plane, and they have a toddler. On a six hour flight it was likely to get cranky. But four hours in it's all cool, many thanks to the grandparents sitting behind.


I, too, am such a beneficiary. Why else would I be Cullen of Adelaide? Sure, the practical help is amazing but also to have the values of my inlaws and my mother imbued on my kids? Priceless.

My boss is such a grandparent, so are many of my colleagues. One day god willing (and in the right circumstances) so will I be. If not in the right circumstances, then however.

But as I said. Praise the lord for the grandparents. Not least on this flight.


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