Apple Tree Update

Planted and secured the M27 Apple varieties as required today. Looking forward to the first fruits next season and the many apple recipes to try.

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Super Spindle M27 Apple Trees

Poles for Apple Trees

Well we have finally made a start on the Apple Orchard (small that it is) @ Cambridge Farm. Of course there is a bit of infrastructure that needs to be installed before the trees are planted.

Shown here are the end poles to secure the tensioned wire too.

We are planting a total of 12 M27 Apple Trees of different varieties in this space @ 30cm apart.
The trees we have chosen will provide fruit from mid February through to late August.
Stay tuned for the installation of the tensioned wire.....

Growing Basil Plants

Green Basil

Have you had diffculty growing basil? Many do in Tasmania. Often the plant goes to seed before you can get any leaves. If you have never grown your own basil, and only used the stuff from shops, try growing it at least once, you will be amazed at the difference in taste between 'fresh basil' and 'not so fresh'.

Basil grows well in a humus rich moist soil, we suggest some shade in afternoon, seems to keep it a little 'sweeter', and tends to stop it from going to seed (bolting). Basil grows in late spring and summer. To get a head start you can start growing seeds a little earlier in a cold frame or greenhouse. You can even grow basil in a greenhouse during cooler months. Best known for its use in pesto, basil actually comes in a few varieties including cinnamon, fino verde, genovese giant, greek (yiotis) lemon, lime, mammoth, napolitano. opal and purple ruffles all have their special uses.

Purple Basil

Basil Pesto Recipe

• 3 - 6 cloves of garlic (roast garlic in oil first to give a sweet nutty flavor)
• 100g pine nuts
• 50g of freshly grated parmesan cheese
• 100g basil leaves cleaned (with stems removed)
• 100ml Olive oil
• Majoram leaves (tsp)
• Freshly ground black pepper (tsp)

Blend all of the dry ingredients in a food processor adding olive oil until you get a creamy mixture.



Thai Basil

Making Supers and Frames for the Hive

Electric current to melt foundation into wires We screwed the super, some use nails We are using the plastic ends for the first time

We haven't found a place to buy completely built hive box's so we made our own from the purchased parts. I would suggest looking to the Internet to buy your hive parts. Penders prices, as an example, seem reasonable. A Bee Keeper friend strongly suggested the plastic ends. He says they last much longer, and rarely will the ends of the frames split. I have one frame, in our existing hives, with this problem. Let's see how it works! One photo not taken was the two wires placed between the ends. This wire is to support the foundation wax. A crimping tool was used to tension the wire. Matt in the top photo is applying a small electric current into this wire to melt the foundation wax onto it. Why do we do this? First, we don't want the foundation to fall out of the frame. Second, our bees don't have to work quite as hard, as they use some of the wax to build their comb from. And third the "foundation" makes the bees build the comb in an orderly manner, making the honey extraction easier.

Nan Rose's Tomato Relish Recipe

I have copied word for word mums relish recipe as she wrote with her own hand 35 years ago. She got it from her mother who was making it for decades previous. I am guessing this is an old favorite from North Eastern Tasmania.

How to make tomato relish:
6 pounds ripe tomatoes
2 pounds onions
2 pounds sugar
2 tablespoons curry powder
1/2 teaspoon cayenne powder
3 tablespoons mustard powder
Vinegar to barely cover
Salt

Cut tomatoes, sprinkle with salt, let stand 12 hours
Slice onion in separate dish, sprinkle with salt, let stand 12 hours
Strain juice off onions only.
Place tomatoes and onions in pan and everything else except mustard and curry. Boil for 5 min. Mix mustard and curry with vinegar and boil 1 hour.

Before

After

Yield has been great at our veggie plot. My first batch of relish is with 4.5 kg of tomatoes. The tomatoes have taken an unusually long time to ripen this year. It has been a cooler than normal summer.

Vertical Apple Trees

Vertical Apple Trees! An interesting find on a recent trip to the Huon Valley. The grower says the secret is in 'dwarf stock'. And we say it makes them easier to pick!

Wood Fired Oven Construction

Work has started on the Wood Fired Oven @ the Cambridge Small Holdings, Can you just imagine pulling out some freshly baked bread smothered in garlic butter or a pizza made from all local produce! It makes your mouth water just thinking of it.

The brick base has been roughed bagged in a mortar lime mix. 

Bottling Bulk Honey

Bottling the honey took longer than extracting the honey from the hives! It was a learning curve and I have a few tips. The best tip is to heat the honey to 60 °C. Otherwise the honey will take forever to flow through the filter material.  Muslin was used as the filter material. Before heating the honey it took about 15 minutes for each bottle to fill, after heating only 20 seconds! The photo shows the final product. I bought the bottles at Cospak. They have all sorts of bottles, jars and containers, normally in bulk supply only. The 20L white container with honey gate I purchased from Hollander Imports for about $29 ... so who's going to eat the honey?

Bee Stings in Painful Places

One of the three places where you don't want a bee sting

Honey Extraction Time!

Finally the Cambridge Division & Co are delivering some produce. HONEY After a few hours (including several stings) we extracted about 18kg of the sweet goodness from 13 frames. The video above shows the wax being scraped off to allow the honey to be spun out of the frame. The pictures below highlight the Super and Frames and also the excess of wax & honey due to a healthy hive.