1st May, 2024

Two lovely autumn days. Crisp and clear, blue skies and gentle breezes. Quite warm if you are out of the wind. AgFest is forecast for the same conditions and it will be nice not to be in wind and rain there for a change. It's almost guaranteed to be bad weather most years, last year they had to tow alot of cars out with tractors. Luckily there were heaps of tractors there on display.

I put a bigger glass jar on the passionfruit as a cloche, giving it room to grow a little before the cold sets it back, in the hope that it will put enough into the roots to come back in spring.

I picked the handful of huon crab apples on my small tree, and those are in the dehydrator at the moment. The huon crab has a red flesh and is a cross between a dessert apple and a crab apple, with a lovely crisp flesh and a taste a bit like a cox's orange pippin.


I have been eking out a salt that has finely ground licorice root added to it, which I use on steak. I had a brain wave while sorting out a cupboard, as I came upon a packet of black adder tea. I am going to try adding some of that to a nice salt and see if it's anything like my licorice salt. The ingredients of the tea are licorice root, fennel seeds and oil, peppermint leaves and aniseed. My salt is just licorice root and sea salt. I could maybe even add a smidge of hops...

I fixed some loose battens on the chook house today. The cafe blind that has been protecting the front in winter from the easterlies has finally perished and I think the next job for Thomas and I will be pulling it down and replacing it with some clear greenhouse plastic. The clear plastic of the blind allowed sunshine in to warm the coop on winter mornings while still keeping the rain and wind out, and the light also helped keep pests down. 

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