Queensland Gardening

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Jaboticaba Jam

Have a couple of bowls handy and a sharp pointed knife then pick up the washed fruit, pierce the skin and squeeze the pulp and seed into one bowl and the skin into another. Do this a few hundred times and you will have enough for quite a few bottles of jam. Simmer the pulp for 10 minutes then put through a strainer then throw out the seeds.

Chop up the skins in a food processor or similar to a rough texture only adding minimum water. Simmer the skins for 10 minutes then add the pulp and skins together, measure amount in number of cupfuls. Heat up this mix and add sugar cup for cup with the mix then boil until jam thickens. If you have trouble setting the Jam add 'Jam setter', if you need to do this then you have added too much water in the skin chopping process.Judy has been standing over my shoulder while I have been writing this telling me she is the jam maker not me.

June Garden

Well, finally a wet start to a month.
We had 6.5 inches of rain in the first week of June with good follow up showers for the next couple of weeks. All the water tanks are full, so the water outlook is looking good for winter.
I haven’t said this for a long time, but we need a small dry spell so I can do some of the dry weather jobs that need doing.
I have used all of our sugar cane mulch and cannot get any more until the end of July.
I have started to use last Septembers compost, it is very good brew, dark, fine and rich, this was all the shredded material from last years custard apple prune, I know it takes a long time but it’s well worth the wait.
We are having a meeting of the ‘Internatonal Cordyline Society’ at our home during June, of course the garden is in winter mode so it will not be at it’s best, but, Cordylines always look good at this time of year.

There was a display of photos on canvas at our local shopping centre and that set me thinking, how good would the shade house wall look with a selection of pictures from our garden, so I have ordered three at 750mm x 750mm and perhaps I will order one rectangular one once I see the quality, should look good.
I have also come up with the idea of two battery-operated waterfalls for two of the small ponds along the garden trails.
The photos on canvas are brilliant and will be a great addition to the ‘Open Garden’.
The meeting went well and all enjoyed our garden.