Bananas galore and garden haul

As you can see I am tracking my banana from start to eating. It seemed to take forever for the first Cavendish to ripen.

Two weeks later the heart has grown longer and in comparison with the Cavendish this heart is HUGE so I will be expecting a big bunch. You can see the status of the growth from this first sighting on July 12th

Cavendish Banana is hanging in there

I went out to water the fruit trees and saw all these goodies. I had not taken much notice and voila fruit everywhere.  Large one is a lots a lemon tree, Kefir lime, Nagami and Calamondine cumquat. The trees are no taller than I am so I wasnt taking much notice to see if they were fruiting.

My Uncle Max potted up an Amberella tree for me. We used to eat it in Fiji and I cant wait for it to fruit so I can make pickle with it.

Happy gardening all

Lady Finger Banana 1st bunch

 I've been watching and watching out for my first banana from the Lady Finger tree and today I was rewarded for my persistence. I believe this was planted before Sep 2021 because the photo below was dated 1 Sep 2021

May 2022 this photo was taken, does not look much larger 4 months later

Fast forward to 12 July 2022 (today) after watching for months, I finally spot the heart of the bunch of bananas appearing. the first sign was that the tree was leaning

So up go the two pieces of wood to secure the lean

So we shall see how long it takes from heart to bunch for eating. 

Stay tuned!!!

Postcards for swapping

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Notebooks Stash

There was talk on a forum I am a member of about stationery. I took out my notebooks and was amazed to see how many I owned. So I took a photo to show how pretty some of them are.

Some of them have never been used, errr most of them. I know I will never run out of paper if covid lockdown hit us again.

Pineapple, Papaya, Ginger Jam

I thought I'd try making pineapple papaya jam. I had a recipe from a Pacific Island friend who had made it and it tasted really good. Of course I added other stuff that I had just bought off a friend from the island - ginger and lemons. Sadly the 9 pineapples I bought had rot in them so I only ended up with about 1 pineapple worth. 

Luckily I had two bottles of pineapple soaking in coconut juice and boy was it smelling nice, I love coconut and the smell. 

I think they are Meyer lemons, they are huge and organic

This is the spoilt pineapple that I had to throw in the compost, so not thrilled, never trust a sale

A friend gave me some mulberries that I had frozen so I cooked them up with some blueberries I found as well. they look good, hope they taste good too

Pineapple Pawpaw Ginger Jam

1 large pineapple

1 large papaya

8 cups raw or white sugar (I only used 1 cup as it was sweet enough)

juice of 1 large lemon

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp ground nutmeg

1/4 tsp ground clove

2 - 3 tsp grated Ginger

45 - 50 minutes simmer all of the above in a pot until the right consistency of thickness. 

Skim froth off the top if there is any.

Put into sterilised bottles. 

I place my bottles upside down to start with so the hot jam can sterilise the lid as well