The easy way to preserve your best blackberries when they are fresh and juicy is to freeze them. Spread them out on an aluminium tray covered with baking paper and put in the freezer. Within a few hours they should be frozen solid and will easily go into a plastic bag. Free-flow berries can be [...]

This is our own recipe based loosely on the DYC vinegar recipe with some extra (not so) secret ingredients.
Lifeboat Farm BBQ Sauce
1 onion, finely chopped
2 tablespoons of cooking oil
2 big tablespoons of caramelised onions
1/4 cup malt vinegar
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 tablespoons of Worcestershire sauce
1 cup of tomato puree
1/4 cup of tomato paste
1/4 cup of finely [...]

The best shortbread recipe I know is in the Edmonds Cookbook.
Shortbread
250g butter, softened
1 cup icing sugar
1 cup cornflour
2 cups plain flour
Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Sift cornflour an flour together. Mix sufted ingredients into creamed mixture. Knead well. On a lightly floured board roll out to 0.5cm thickness. Shape into a circle [...]

We left our grass to get quite long and dry before we cut hay this year. The horses don’t need the lushest feed during winter, just good roughage. As a result, the grass had a plenty of seed and it looks like the hay cutting has dropped a lot of that seed back into the [...]

Planted today:
Shallots x24
Red Spring Onions x40
Spinach x6
Cavallo Nero x24
Kale x24
Beetroot (Chioggia) x 30
Lettuce x10

With another burst of planting out seedlings today we are up to over 500 tree lucerne potted up. With the plans we have for native bush re-planting we’ll need a couple of thousand of these little guys as a nursery crop for the natives. I’ll post more on growing tree lucerne soon.

We’ve found that mulching the garden beds with straw or hay makes a huge difference in the moisture retained in the soil. It also helps control weeds around the desirable plants. While straw is preferable (it takes longer to break down and is less likely to blow away) you can use old hay.
This is what [...]

This was my first crusty four seed bread in the wood range - it managed to get to 240 degrees C without too much trouble (although I think we boiled the hot water cylinder in the process). Although it is the same recipe I use in our electric bread maker, the taste and texture is [...]

Our friend Neil across the valley has a large patch of blackberries so we spent a couple of pleasant hours this afternoon picking berries. With most of a bucket full we’ll be making some jam, chutney etc very soon.

Here’s Kaye, our current helper teaching the chickens to weed. The chickens haven’t quite got the hang of leaving the good plants alone.