Biodynamic treechange (homesteading)

Our last harvest from the old rhubarb bed

When we first arrived here at Near River, I was very keen to get some of the perennial vegetables planted as they can keep producing for many years. One of the best pieces of advice that we've been given is that for this enterprise to work you really need to grow what you love. Excellent - asparagus and rhubarb are two of my favourites, and while they can take some time to start producing, once they are settled, with the right care they'll keep giving for years. You can read about our asparagus escapades here and here, and see an earlier rhubarb story here.

We have a small range of preserves that we sell at markets, through a few key retailers in the Hastings and in Sydney, and at our online farmgate stall. Initially the idea was that we'd use excess production to provide the material for the preserve range, and that has more or less been the situation, until one of the preserves starts to sell quicker than you can grow it.

Such is the case of our delicious Rhubarb Lime + Ginger Compote.

Back in 2008, having created the first growing bed and planting a border row of lemongrass for protection, we planted our first rhubarb plants. Grown from seed in our polyhouse, it was pretty exciting nine months later to start 'pinching' some stems and using them in the kitchen for breakfasts and desserts. Not long after this, our good friend John Shelley from Red Hill at Telegraph Point offered us some excellent deep red rhubarb crowns - wild horses couldn't have kept me back. From memory, John gave us about 60 crowns, and for the last couple of years they've been providing us and our CSA customers with wonderful red rhubarb.

In the spring of 2010, we launched our Rhubarb Lime + Ginger Compote, which has gone extremely well, quickly gaining popularity here in the Hastings Valley, and farther afield thanks to our extensive network of agents (read family) and the joys of online marketing.

And then a happy dilemma - we need more plants, but we can't damage the production of our existing crop. Rhubarb is a plant that can be propogated very easily by division, indeed it's perfect for this form of reproduction as you end with identical 'offspring' from the parent plant, also ideal in our case of highly sort after red stem rhubarb. So to minimise the impact we chose to move and divide the existing crop in two sections.

The first 25 plants have been moved to the new, improved bed, giving us 125 plants - don't you like that math - and the remaining 50 plants were harvested last week, and will be moved over the coming few weeks. All up we should finish up with over 300 plants in the new bed, and that will keep us in rhubarb for a few years to come.

So with the red stems trimmed and washed, I headed into town and our chefs, Eric Robinson and Geoff at The Other Chef Fine Foods who produce all our preserves, and witnessed our fresh rhubarb, just harvested that morning, being processed, cooked and bottled. The following images say it all. Later this year, when the citrus trees reach the right age, we'll be using our limes and ginger too.

Add the rhubarb to the pot ...mix well ...simmer at 90 deg for 10 mins ...and presto!

Keen to try some of this for yourself? A couple of local cafes have it on their menu - Bent on Food in Wingham and Beetroot'd in Kendall - and the following stores have it on their shelves - in Port Macquarie head to Essential Ingredients, About Food, or The Visitor Info Centre at The Glasshouse, and in Coffs Harbour Essential Ingredients have it there too. Otherwise order it online at the Near River Farm Gate or come and see us this Saturday and every second Saturday of the month at the Port Macquarie Farmers Markets in WestPort; every fourth Saturday at the Wauchope Farmers Markets at the Showground; and each third Sunday at the Laurieton Riverside Walk Markets.

Stuck for how to use it? I love it with museli or stirred through yoghurt for breakfast, dolloped on banana bread with cream, or chocolate cake with mascapone, or best of all, simply partnered with ice cream. We've heard of customers using it with pork and duck dishes too!

Chef launches Near River Cafe with a superb degustation dinner

For a while now we've harboured a desire to have a small cafe ...... no that's not true - maybe some ways down the track.

But we do enjoy sharing good produce, food and wine with our friends, and with a German chef on hand for a month or so as a Wwoofer (Willing Workers On Organic Farms) we jumped at this opportunity when Matthias suggested it.

I'll let the pictures tell the story.

  The menu

  The setting 

Antipasto with ….

breads (chilli with honey, walnut, and herb) and ...

corn – the first from Near River.

potato salad w Raging River Wagyu meatballs

goats cheese cream w semi dried tomatoes

smoked salmon rolls w purple caviar (Near River finger lime segments soaked in beetroot juice)

chicken cottage pie

white wine pears w blue cheese sauce

orange and basil sorbet

sushi trilogy

coffee parfait w chocolate crumble

passionfruit sorbet

 

It was a great meal and a wonderful night, with thanks to Matthias for all his hard work, and our friends for sharing beautiful wine and food with us.

Yep it was yum. I can’t wait for the next one.

 

Tasty spring garlic - is there anything better?

As you'd expect, the learning curve here has been pretty steep over the last three years. Sure I'd trained in horticulture and practiced it for well over a decade, and most of that was in other people's gardens. But the world of vegetable growing has opened up a whole new gamet of plants and how to grow them. And then there is how to care for them once they've been harvested, but I digress.

Who's heard of spring garlic? Until a little over a year ago, neither had we. Also often called green garlic, basically it's undersize garlic that is lifted from the beds in spring as they are thinned to allow the larger garlic to reach it full size.

And it's wonderful stuff to cook and eat with quite a subtle flavour when compared to the cured and dried garlic that is usually used in the kitchen.

We've been having it sauteed in butter with asparagus and Near River poached eggs   and now chef Todd Richardson of The Corner Restaurant in Port Macquarie will have Near River spring garlic on the menu shortly too. Todd suggests that "It goes well with twice cooked beef, the Corner's own caramelised onion and truffle oil. The garlic is best slowly roasted. And be quick as the green garlic is only in season for less than a month each year."

This is quite exciting for us as we're keen to develop a strong bond with a couple of key chefs to provide great produce for, and it seems that we are on our way to that happening.

Here's what Stephanie Alexander says about garlic -

"Newly harvested garlic can be used as soon as it is picked. It is a very special treat usually reserved for home gardeners. The cloves are crisp in texture (almost juicy) and the flavour is fresh and pungent. Wrap these freshly harvested heads in a piece of oiled foil and roast for 45-60 minutes in a 180C degree oven until quite soft, then squeeze this perfumed spread onto bread. Exquisite! Even before harvesting the garlic, a few of the green tops can be cut and used as flavouring, snipped straight into sauces, omelettes, soups, casseroles or stir-fries. Green garlic is very pungent and is best cooked rather than added raw to a salad."

I just love finding out about all the new ways to use each of the vegetables and herbs that we are growing here at Near River - so much to learn and experience.

Spring's here. And so is great tasting new season produce!

It’s been sometime since I last posted on this blog – almost 18 months – and I could go on and explain why, blaming extra work on the farm for keeping me away from the blog. I guess the reality is that it lost it’s attraction. But now that has passed, and I have quite a few things to tell you a;; about – goings on here at the farm, and matters throughout the world that are important, or important to me!.

Over the coming weeks and months you’ll see how matters have progressed at Near River.

And to restart proceedings, here’s what we’ve been having for brunch the last few mornings.

Fresh field grown asparagus drizzled with spring garlic sautéed in butter

with poached organic free range chook eggs

Doesn’t that just make your mouth water?

We planted this asparagus 3 years ago and it’s so good now to be able to wander out to the market garden and grab it fresh. You can read about our first asparagus planting at Who is Mary Washington anyway?

The spring (or green) garlic are the ‘thinning's’ from the garlic plantings, plants that are too small to form decent bulbs, and they have a wonderful garlic aroma but lack the intensity of the fully grown and dried variety. A very subtle flavour indeed.

And our poached eggs – what can I say? I never grow tired of our eggs, with the yolks so bright and golden and the whites with that creamy texture in your mouth – so delicious.

Obviously our superb eggs are available with our vegetables in the weekly CSA boxes that will start again next week.

However, If you just want possibly the best eggs you’ll ever taste, in Port Macquarie you’ll find them at Essential Ingredients in Short Street and Organic Belly in Murray Street. Sydney ciders can venture into Cafe 169 on Alison Road in Randwick.

That’s all for now.

 

Zucchini + Parmesan frittata

Here's a quick dinner dish using all the current summer produce from the market garden.