A photographic walk

Upper Gully from Glenfern Road - home of The Trad Pad

Gina has posted on a recent walk. Set off on a l-o-n-g walk from The Trad Pad on Monday. I walked up Glenfern Road, turned into Ferndale Road, walked past the Sherbrooke Archers meeting ground, took a diversion along a creek, walked by Gilmour Park and its lake complete with ducks.

Then I came to the beginning of suburbia with lovely mountainside homes. I stopped to chat to a newer resident who had purchased a home with an overgrown garden and he was doing battle with rampant ivy over the rock wall. He was interesting - a retired horticulturalist with a penchant for cacti and succulents.

On my walk, I was able to feast upon wild apricots and plums. I took pictures of some beautiful "weeds": rampant convolvulus "Morning Glory" intermingled with agapanthus. Agapanthus is beautiful but it has found its way into our close-by national park. It does look beautiful - the mauve blossom against the grey eucalypt trunks - but it is indeed an interloper there.

And then it was down into Upper Gully village and home by a walking/bike path tucked away behind the main shopping roads. And then past the Neighbourhood House and School, across the park, along the creek and home. Two and half hours on the hoof and on the loose and here are the photographs:

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You say to-may-toe : I say to-mah-toe

To-day I found the tomatoes I need for the vege garden - at our Upper Gully week-end market. I purchased eight plants - listed below. I purchased eight advanced plants for $14. To-day has been a very warm Melbourne day 28/29 degrees so I will plant them in the cool of early evening. For more information on tomatoes, and some good recipes go here.

Sweet Bite

Hybrid
Small tomato variety producing masses of good flavoured, bite sized fruit ideal for salads. Sweet Bite is easily grown in the garden or in decorative tubs and contained . Stake to support using a trellis

Patio Roma

An heirloom variety.

A vigorous compact plant that looks as good as freshly picked fruit tastes. Good yields of tasty bright red pear shaped tomatoes with excellent shelf life.

Roma

An heirloom variety.

This variety produces an abundance of great flavoured, bright red, egg shaped fruits. They are delicious eaten fresh in salads, sandwiches and a variety of cooked dishes.

Mortgage Lifter

An heirloom variety.

Bred by “Radiator Charlie” (M.C. Byles) in he 1930s, these meaty mild flavoured tomatoes with few seeds are said to have helped Charlie pay off his mortgage because they were so popular. The fruit is pinkish read, slightly flattened, globe shape, and ranges from 250-1500 grams in weight. Some tomato! It is said they make the perfect tomato sandwich.

Mighty Red

Large tomato variety producing many full-flavoured, globe shaped fruits.A vigorous, disease free plant, easily grown in the garden or in large decorative tubs or containers.

Green Zebra

An heirloom variety./Hybrid

The result of breeding four heirloom varieties. Green Zebra yields rich yellow-green, medium sized fruit with distinctive darker green stripes. The flesh is lime to emerald-green in colour; the texture of the flesh is cream and the flavour tangy. It needs staking and produces a heavy crop. Green Zebra is also low in acid. A great tomato for adding zing to that tired old salad.

Black Russian

An heirloom variety.

Black Russian is a must for black tomato fans with its complex flavour - sweet and spicy with smoky undertones. Drying the fruit enhances the flavour. The fruit is large, round and smooth and almost mahogany in colour. Black Russian is an open, pollinated variety with good disease resistance. It is early to mature and a heavy cropper.

Grosse Lisse

A mid to late season staking variety producing medium to large sized fruit. Excellent summer-autumn flavour.

Show and Tell Friday: Wedgwood

OK, OK, I am awake and I do know it's Saturday morning here in Oz but I figure I can still do my bit for Friday's Show and Tell because for Kelli - who hosts it - it is still Friday in Texas, USA. And as Knox City Queen of the Hard Rubbish, Miss Eagle has to say that Kelli's curbside baker's stand is a find. Would love to find one on a curb in my neighbourhood.

This beautiful Wedgwood fruit bowl has been in my possession for more than three decades.

As a young mum living in Toowoomba, Queensland, I used to haunt auction sales.

One auctioneer held regular sales in his own rooms.

There, behind his counter, and along a wall would be "The Sundries".

The Sundries were magic boxes full of heaven knows what.

They could be filled with useful odds and sods

or you might, as I did in this case, find buried treasure.

Then once having found the treasure you would hold your breath and hope that no-one else discovered or wanted your buried treasure.

On this day, no-one had discovered and/or wanted what I treasured.

I paid $2 for my box.

I think there were other useful things in the box but they have faded away in my memory.

This, for someone who did not have much money to spend, was an affordable wonder.

Herself has been styling corners again and this corner includes the fruit bowl full of ornamental glittered pears.

A crop and a cat at The Trad Pad

The backyard Lemon Tree is cropping. This is the first.

With the addition of a little mint, some sweetener and water, this emerged.

This white painted basket with its cheerful gingham liner sits on the floor beside my desk. It is waiting to find a home or a function that is not yet clear. There are a number of cat baskets at The Trad Pad - large, commodious and warmly lined. Yet, in yesterday's cold, Rose the SpartaCat decided to curl up in this. One could never have imagined that he would fit - but fit he did. Perhaps - in spite of this basket being lined only with a simple cotton fabic - it was warm because he could curl himself up tightly into the nearest resemblance of a ball that a large, fat, contented cat can manage.

And this morning, he went nuts. In the pre-dawn dark, as I am sitting in the next room at my computer he is rampant in this chest of drawers in the midst of refurbishment. In, out, roundabout, scratching, on the move, noisy. Mad cat, Rose! Are you training for cheezburger?

Lemon Blossom

The lemon blossom is flaunting itself.
Making itself attractive to bees/
But the bees wouldn't hang around while Miss Eagle focussed
And, dear Reader, as you can see the beauty bears fruit.

Lemons.