October garden

Hi everyone, just a few photos from around my garden this week. It is spring here in Australia and it feels like, to me at least, that it has been a weird start to spring, cold and wet days, and then a burst of warm weather. But perhaps the change in seasons is always like this. We are into the last two weeks of October and tonight we have the fire on - it should be warming up by now. Though I know I shouldn't complain as I know the heat is coming. But I must say I think our garden is enjoying the rain, cooler days and sunshine.

In our back garden our apricot tree is rocketing away with new fruit - we've had to put the net up to keep the parrots off, we have blueberries ripening - so fantastic to eat straight off the bush, the lemon tree is flowering even though there is still some of last season's fruit on the tree, the tomatoes are putting out baby tomatoes, and the grape vine is forming grapes. 

 I made French Marmalade and Lemon Butter with some of those lemons. The marmalade has carrots in it and is delicious - not a sour marmalade like some of them can be.

My new quince tree has flowers! I adore quinces, so I am looking forward with anticipation to my first piece of fruit. I can even see the start of tiny quinces!

In my front garden there are flowers - the green kangaroo paws are reaching up their green heads on long stalks, the Bird of Paradise is putting out a couple of final flowers, the lavender is flowering, the pelargoniums are looking fantastic, new buds are bursting on my roses, and this yellow native is making a bright ground cover.

 The kangaroo paws are native to Western Australia.  The type I have is a tall green kangaroo paw - Anigozanthos flavidus 'Green' - which grows up to 2 metres tall. It flowers throughout the summer. 

Kangaroo paws belong to the genus Anigozanthos, which has 11 species. The closely related Black Kangaroo Paw is called Macropidia fulginosa. 
 Anigozanthos and Macropidia occur naturally only in the southwest of Western Australia. They occur in a variety of habitats and soil types    Australian National Herbarium

 
 My Port Wine Magnolia is looking beautiful, but the little birds haven't built there this year.

On Friday I was invited to photograph a beautiful garden in the Ferguson Valley for the coming Ferguson Valley Open Gardens weekend - 10-11th November. More on that in the next couple of weeks. 

And I met a baby lamb only 10 days old, one of a set of triplets kicked out by the other two, and still learning to suck. It was good to hear yesterday that she is now doing well.

Just a short post from me today - life has been hectic this last week and I need to catch up. But thank you so much for stopping by. I value your comments and look forward to hearing from you. I will try to visit your blogs in return. Have a wonderful week.  

Next week I will be back to share another photography project I've been working on. See you then! 
 
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I am linking up to the link-ups below. Please click on the links to see fabulous contributions from around the world - virtual touring at its best!

   
All Seasons
Mosaic Monday 

Our World Tuesday

Pictorial Tuesday 

ThroughMy Lens 

Image-in-ing
Wednesday Around the World at Communal Global
Travel Photo Thursday 

The Lovin' Life Team over at: Deep Fried Fruit and 50 Shades of Age
Little Things Thursday

Life in Reflection

Hello there! I love reading your comments. If you scroll down to the bottom you can comment too! I would love to hear from you.

An InLinkz Link-up

Playing around with food and light

It's been a little while since I posted about food photography, so today is the day!                                                          If you are a newbie food photographer with only basic equipment you might struggle with light. I know I did. I                                                            You should study the light around your home as you will probably find that the light changes around your house throughout the day. My patio is great in the mornings, and my kitchen window is great around midday or later on if I am looking for backlighting.

 

Please click on "read more" to read more!

Photographing on black

Playing around with photographing on a black tile in my light box with my macro lens the other day. I must say I haven't used my light box for a long time, so it was fun to get it out and experiment.

 Truss tomatoes - I like the way the red really stands out against the black in this shot - just be careful you clean off all the specs on the black tile or glass - it is amazing how they show up on your image!

Cinnamon quills - 

Star Anise -

old spoons -

This one is mushrooms on a mirror with a black backdrop-

cherries on mirror with white backdrop -

and cinnamon on brown paper

and Orios! on white with white background -

 Thank you for stopping by. Do you spend time playing around and experimenting with your camera? Have a wonderful week.

If you would like to see more of my food photography please go to my Flickr page by clicking here - Jill's food set on Flickr

I am linking up to Mosaic Monday  and Our World Tuesday  . Please click on the links to see the work of other contributors around the world. 


 

Summer is here!

Summer is here and with it come the fruits and vegetables of summer and time for preserving and making salads.

I have been making Zucchini Pickle (you might call it Relish) every summer for abut 30 years.  It is a recipe that my friend Kathy gave me. It is fairly quick and easy to make. Zucchini Pickle is my husband's favourite pickle so I make it every year around this time of year when zucchini's are plentiful and cheap. He likes to give his fishing mate a jar every Christmas - it is his favourite too!

Zucchini pickle is great for having with summer salads and cold meats, or in a sandwich, or just on fresh bread with cheese or cold meat. It is also wonderful for giving to friends or family as a homemade gift.  It has some fabulous spices in the recipe - you can see them ready to go in the mosaic, and the finished product waiting for their lids. Don't you just love the yellow colour!

 You will need:

1lb (450g) brown onions, chopped and sliced finely
4lb (1.8kg) zucchini sliced finely (about 6 zucchini)
2 pints (12000ml) white vinegar 
2lb (900gm) white sugar
2 tablspn mustard powder
1 teaspoon mixed spice
t tblspn salt
1 tblspn tumeric
1 teaspn white pepper
1 cup plain flour (you could probably use cornflour or a gluten free flour)

 Don't use the really big zucchinis as the skin is too tough. 
Slice the zucchinis lengthwise and cut out the seeds. Then slice the zucchinis finely. No need to peel, but I take off any damaged skin. A food processer helps with the slicing.

Put the onions, zucchini and half the vinegar into a large pan. Cook until tender. Mix the dry ingredients with the rest of the vinegar and mix into the pan. Add the sugar. Cook for about 10 minutes stirring constantly. 

Most important to stir constantly! Otherwise it will stick and burn if you don't stir constantly!
Bottle and cover immediately. 

Summer has begun, and our tomatoes are starting to ripen in our garden. Here are some radishes, and little tomatoes. The green bunch of tomatoes tore off the vine accidentally when I tried to pluck a ripe one - oops!

I was chasing the light the morning I photographed this last week, or should I say trying to find somewhere that wasn't so bright! I should have gotten up 2 hours earlier! The sun seems to be coming up around 5.30am now! When the sun went momentarily behind a cloud around lunch time, and I grabbed this shot. Clouds are a great diffuser - especially in the harsh Australian summer sun!

I saw three slightly different variations of the salad shown below in three places last week - Tartelette - www.tarteletteblog.com; The Red Bistro - www.theredbristro.com; and in my fabulous new cook book - Ed Halmagyi's The Food Clock - The Food Clock (fabulous food pics!).
So I guess it was telling me something - that I would need to make and photograph it.

The salad includes, mixed salad leaves, radishes, fennel, pomegranate, red onion, green apple, walnuts, feta. With a drizzle of vinaigrette over it, or your favourite salad dressing, just before serving.

The salad certainly has some lovely summer colours. And Christmassy too with the red and green! Photographed here in natural morning light on my patio. The bowl is "Depression" glass from my mother-in-law's china cabinet. She always used to use this bowl for salads.

And just something a little different - Just playing around with colour and radishes and a different slant on things! Do you like the effect? 
Colour enhancement courtesy of RadLab

Thank you for stopping by. What is your favourite summer salad?
I look forward to hearing from you. Have a fabulous week.

I am linking up to Mary and all the fabulous photographers at Mosaic Monday at Little Red House - please click on the link here to visit - Mosaic Monday

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Summer tomatoes

summer tomatoes

oh my goodness, the heat has been sapping here the last couple of weeks. Autumn is supposed to be here and we are still experiencing temperatures in the high 30s centigrade!
During January we had more rain than normal for summer, but February and the beginning of March - heat!

Our summer crop of tomatoes is all but finished. The plants are shrivelling in the hot sun. My husband would like to pull out the bushes, but the tomatoes are still producing a few which keep us going for salads.

These are tiny heirloom tomatoes - a variety is called "red fig" - it is an elongated tear drop type shape - not round. We have never planted heirloom tomatoes before - and it certainly has been a prolific bush.  My grandsons love the little cherry type tomatoes, which is why we grew a small variety.

Here are a few of the last tomatoes clinging to the bush -

 An here is a collage of tomatoes -  photographed in a nifty little bucket I bought from a garden shop last week, on one of my old boards under the shade of my patio - photographed with my new macro lens.

A couple of years ago on DPS when I was moaning about my "kit" lenses, a very wise person said to learn, practice, work out my style, use my lenses - and then, and only then, upgrade to a better quality lens.

How right he was! and that day has come! All last year I while I have been working on my food photography I wished for a better quality lens. And last Saturday my husband said "well buy one". And so I did. I bought a macro F2.8 100mm pro lens. It arrived on Thursday -  woo hoo! so excited about my new lens!

 And to finish a plate of plums - I love the stone fruit that is around this time of year - and especially these plums which are dark red inside - delicious. They are a variety called "rosa" very much like "satsumas" which we hardly ever see these days. Soon all the stone fruit will be finished, so I enjoy them while I can. Photographed here in morning light - I have to catch the morning light at just the right time on my north east  facing patio. I have sprayed the plums with water to give them that fresh just picked look.

Thank you for looking everyone. I look forward to hearing from you.

I am joining Mary and other amazing contributors at Mosaic Monday at Little Red House - to see their work please click here - Mosaic Monday

Have a wonderful week.