First harvest of golden shallots

I was keen to start harvesting the tangled mess of golden shallots that were starting to cure while still in the soil, so I grabbed my 13L tub and starting pulling them up.

I had barely plucked a third of what I had growing and already my tub was full. Looks like I'll have lots to eat and plenty of bigger bulbs to replant for a crop next year!

Hot Chocolate Lily

Earlier in the year at the Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show, I bought a bulb of the lily that I had been admiring in various gardening catalogues for a year - the Hot Chocolate lily. 

But as spring cautiously arrived, I began to fear I'd not given it the right conditions. Then I saw signs of life in the form of leaves. I was so relieved that I hadn't killed it that I didn't even think I might get a flower until the following year.

So it was a complete surprise when I opened the curtain this morning and discovered the beautiful bloom. So happy!

Preserving cherries in brandy

This is the recipe I've been dying to try since my mum, my sister and I did the Christmas Preserving class at My Green Garden.

Whilst we didn't have time to make cherries in brandy each, we did learn to make and took home a jar of each of the following: 

• Savoury onion jam
• Figs infused with Earl Grey tea preserved in brandy
• Cranberry Chutney
• Spicy Eggplant Pickle

As you can see from the photo, we also learnt a variety of techniques for dressing up the jars so that we could give them away as gifts, if we wanted to. (Not a chance! These are mine! I will admit that my decorating needs some work, but I was rushing a bit)

In addition to all of this, our lovely teacher Maria gave us all a copy of the instructions for preserving cherries in brandy.

So when my mum and sister drove out to Cherryhill Orchards to get our cherries for Christmas, I asked them to get me a box as well. 

My sister's cherry tree had produced almost enough cherries to fill her own jars (only one jar ended up mixed), leaving me to use the dark red Cherryhill Orchards cherries for my own. 

As you can see from the size of my jars, I was maybe a little bit too excited about preserving cherries in brandy. 

We were a little bit rushed towards the end, as we did this at my parents' house on a weeknight, so I had to get home so I could get home at a decent hour to go to bed as I had work the next day.

It's all looking good so far!

Cherry harvest

I know it doesn't look like much, but having lost all my cherries last year to either birds or possums, I'm thrilled to have any cherries from my trees at all. I had to pick them a bit earlier than I wanted to because I noticed that ants were had eaten a couple of them already. 

The one on the left is a Lapins cherry and the ones on the right are from the Stella cherry tree.

Surprise find

I pulled up what I thought was a dead spring onion from the pear tree pot, only to find that it was garlic I had planted the winter before last. Apparently leaving it for an extra year meant I got a decent size bulb!

I don't know if it'll work, but I'm seriously considering leaving my garlic in for an extra year in order to see if that's how I can get decent bulbs in future because I have so much trouble trying to grow them in a single year like everything says you're meant to.

It can't hurt to give it a go.