My Incredible Edible Garden

OK, I must admit that I'm feeling rather smug about the garden at the moment - it's true that not everything I planted has grown, and quite a lot of precious seedlings haven't made it through the busy spell, or those not planted out still in my newspaper pots have succumbed to the destructive forces exerted by my merciless puppy and cat, who both think nothing of sitting plum on top of my plant pots or better still shredding the pots with abandon, scattering the contents where they will  (Grrrr!). 

That said I'm learning more every day about the culinary bounty that surrounds us.

I may have already mentioned my flower syrup, which is a real hit on crepes, but that's run of the mill now. I managed to make a first and very precious single jar of hibiscus jam (yes, you heard right hibiscus jam, using a couple of hibiscus varieties that I have got growing here), it is an amazing vibrant red color and has a very pleasant, albeit subtle flavor. 

Whatsmore, I've just discovered daylilies. 

We have a fabulous display of them every spring, it's a real visual treat, but they're also a treat for the palate I discover now - we tried deep fried flowers (after the success of the squash flowers), and they were pretty good I admit. 

Supposedly you can eat almost every part of the plant from the under ground tubers, young shoots to the blooms and buds (aparently an important ingredient in authentic sweet and sour soup - I'm up to try, we've got some dried mushrooms lying around, but sadly we can't get the tofu here to make it a really decent version)! 

August blooms!

We're still enjoying some fairly 'wintry' weather at the moment, as are the whales who are here in force, and seem to be enjoying themselves in this particularly cold season.

However, the first signs of spring are already here. the limeblossom's out, as well as the 'grapefruit' blossom, which smells just incredibly fragrant, like neroli only stronger and zestier. It's actually an Indonesian pomelo, super sweet and juicy, with little in common with what I call a grapefruit, though we still call it pamplemousse here. There are times when there are more or less of them, but we do tend to have a sufficient supply for our needs, all year round, in fact our general citrus glut is one good reason to celebrate, whatever the season or weather!

Fabulous Heliconia

This amazing flower grows by the side of the road in southern Rurutu........it's huge and incredibly beautiful!

Flowers from my Garden

This miniature rose thrives in our front beds, hidden amongst wild ferns, the bright pink flowers poke out through the tropical greenery, it looks strangely wild and beautiful (until our goats find them and eat the lot!). The flowers remind me of home, just like scones with jam and cream. Unfortunately, other larger roses don't thrive so well, between the two introduced, and extremely hungry, leaf-beetles (the Japanese and Chinese rose beetles) they generally end up looking like doilies!

Softly petals fall

whispered rain on mossy rock.

A summer's last breath

Flowers from my Garden

The 'cold' weather continues, so I've been spending time in the garden tidying up and pruning, trying to get a handle on things. Our orchids seem to be oblivious to the cold and are shooting out flowering tendrils all over the place. I'm feeling pretty proud of myself, things are very slowly starting to shape up and I'm slowly filling out our collection! I just added a few honeysuckle cuttings and I'm still expanding our hibiscus collection. I haven't got hold of any cacao plants yet (though I dream of making my own cocoa butter and hot chocolate some day!). I've transplanted our little pomegranate and am hankering after a fig tree for our front garden.........I think I could get into gardening after all!

Flowers from my Garden

 

The humble old marigold, Tagetes erecta grows easily around our garden, seeding itself and popping up with bright little displays all over the place. I love the pungent smell from the flowers and leaves, it makes a great infused monoi, that I like to use in my oil blends, soaps and concoctions.

Flowers from my Garden

 

Gardenia tahitensis or 'tiare tahiti' is our national flower. The blooms have a delicate perfume and almost every household has at least one bush in the garden. The flowers are used for making leis, the flowers are also dried for making monoi. I like to use the flowers to make a tiare-motoi syrup, it's rather good on crepes.....

Flowers from my Garden

What could be more uplifting on a cold, miserable, wet day in may (read november for those in the northern hemisphere), than this cheerful little daisy smiling out of the beds, positively relishing the downpours.
OK, this one is technically a weed here in Rurutu! It's a daisy of some kind, it grows rampant in grassland, the air-strip is literally lit up by these things when they're in full bloom.

Flowers from my Garden

OK, it's another hibiscus (there are lots of 'em!). But did you know that you can actually wash your hair with this variety? Believe it or not it can be done, I've tried it and it's not bad....now I've just got to figure out how to incorporate it into my soap-making attempts!There's another species of hibiscus that can be used as tea, but I've never knowingly come across it here in Tahiti, though I bet it would grow....

Flowers from my Garden

Yellow Ginger - I'm particularly excited that I managed to get this cutting to grow and flower in our front beds, it's not that it's difficult to get it to grow, I just buried it in the sand and left it, it's more that it smells divine and looks pretty too.....

Flowers from my Garden

This week has been difficult for us all, Viriamu lost his father on
monday morning, he had been fighting lung-cancer, and succumbed to
liver failure as a result of the chemotherapy. It's a sad story, but
fortunately, Viriamu's mum is surrounded by supportive family and
friends. Her children and grandchildren are all there at home with
her.

Flowers from my Garden

This series could keep us going for a few months!

Flowers from my Garden

 

Another moment of beauty from my fabulous rambling tropical garden, a welcome break from a world that just seems to be coming apart at the seams at the moment.....

Flowers from my garden

Monoi

Moving on from the incense and hand-milled soap, now I'm playing around with infusing and perfuming monoi oil. It's great for the skin and hair, and ideal for massage. In fact our whole family loves giving and receiving massages, big and small, here Heimana is preparing to give Daddy a quick back rub! She just can't get enough of being massaged and even before she's out of the bath-tub she's pointing at the monoi bottle saying 'maaaoo' (her best attempt at maro, which means massage in tahitian).

The timing is perfect for my experimentation, the sun is there and the flowers are all out, so it's a great time to start infusing monoi.

 here's our ylang-ylang, there's also a mountain of plumeria....

I've been letting my imagination run wild, I've tried coconut flowers and lemon rinds, Rurutu coffee grinds and of course the classics like tahitian jasmin, vanilla and sandalwood, pretty much all the spices I have on the shelf, star anise, clove, cardamon and cinnamon all give lovely complex scents. I'm very happy with a lot of the results and am now playing at blending my own fragrances (today's success is a Rose-sandalwood-vanilla blend) I haven't gone as far as making my own essential oils yet......but I am thinking about it and have already been playing around with floral waters, though it's still early days yet......

California Wedding

Today is my dear friend Sarah's wedding, all the way back in CA. She's getting married on a beach south of SF, off highway 1, an amazingly beautiful part of the west coast. It makes me long for CA, the rugged shorelines, the amazing shows of spring flowers, the sweeping mountains and desolate wilderness.

It also got me all nostalgic, thinking back over our time together as grad students in London, at the NHM. I loved my time living in Vauxhall, in no small part thanks to her. Sarah came out to visit me in CA when I was doing my PhD, and ironically enough came out to CA as a postdoc herself, soon after I left for Tahiti.

She even came out to Rurutu for the wedding, as one of my maids of honor, where she took a fancy to one of my wedding hats!

(Sorry Sarah I couldn't resist)

Now it's her turn, she's getting married to a dashing you man from the Bay Area! It's a real shame that I couldn't make it to the wedding, but I know she'll have a great time, and I can't wait to meet Mr. and Mrs. Dostal. I'm so happy for you, and so sad not to be there..........but beware, the whole tribe will come a vistin' one day!

I can't think of anyone I'd rather have hiked the Grand Canyon with!

Camellias on moss

I have just finished reading 'The Elegance of the Hedgehog' by Muriel Barbery, a translation from the french original. It's a little quirky, but the underlying message is something that I have long held onto. Life is full of pain and sadness, hypocrisy and doubt,  and yet there is also so much beauty, seek out those moments of untold, awe-inspiring beauty. 









The preoccupations of both heroines resonates with me on some levels, running a guesthouse is probably not too far away from being a concierge, and Paloma the misunderstood schoolgirl who's trying to find some sense to it all. I feel a million miles away from the wealthy Paris banlieu, sans regrets, but it was still a good read, and for once any easy book to do with children, as you can quite easily put down and pick up.

May Day.....

Saturday was May Day, in France there are large demonstrations of workers unions', but another tradition is the giving sprigs of 'Lily of the Valley' flowers. Apparently it dates back to 1561, when King Charles the IX of France was offered a sprig of flowers as a lucky charm; in the early twentieth century the gesture was adopted on May 1st as a commemoration of spring. So now people commonly offer the flowers to each other, I think in theory the sprig is supposed to have 13 bells on it to give you the maximum good luck. I suppose it's no sillier than dancing around a maypole!

But it's another one of these traditions that haven't really caught on yet here in Tahiti, along with Easter and Christmas, despite having been pushed at us pretty hard, at least on the local news report! I for one love Lily of the Valley, we had a huge bed of it in our house in Caerphilly, and I still remember the heavenly smell it would give off........still I don't think it'd grow here.....though you could probably try...... At the moment my family are more preoccupied with the preparations for the May Festivities here, which is basically the run up to whistun week (the Pentecost here).

Ten Reasons why I like living in Rurutu: #5

Tropical flowers - it's still the summer here, so we're enjoying the exuberant tropical blooms, the rich fragrances and shocking colors, it's a wonderful part of everyday life here. Not to mention the leis, which are a tradition that is particularly strong here in the Australs. Arrivals and departures must be heralded with flowers and the bigger the better!

Our dear friend Maeva would not be seen out and about without a 'couronne' on her head.......

I'm not much of a gardener, but even I'm inspired to give it a go; the lush tropical vegetation barely needs tending. Orchids grow here like a weed.

Heliconia and torch ginger, with their exquisite other-worldly, almost chiseled blooms.

Hibiscus, the quintessential South Seas flower, comes in a fabulous array of reds, oranges, pinks and yellows.

Gardenia with it's heady perfume and equally sweet smelling Tahitian variety, is everywhere and is widely used in leis and for monoi.

Ylang ylang, grows outside our home and while the flowers look a little strange, the sublime perfume filters up into the bedrooms in the evening, it's just magnificent.

Other superb fragrances in our garden include Plumeria and white ginger (it has a peppery, sweet fragrance that is indescribable),

Heck, even coconut flowers smell good.......

I'm just starting work on a wall of jasmine for our terrace. All these fragrances really are remarkable and I'd love to start making my own line of monoi oil and soaps, from my own essential oils or flower waters......I've already been toying with it, but I'm not there yet!

Summer's here

Finally the season seems to be changing - the flowers and fruit are here. The first mangoes are falling from the trees (Hurray!) and the mini sunflowers I planted a month or so ago are in bloom. The weather is sunny and so we even ventured out onto the beach, though Matotea was the only one brave enough to actually get submerged. Even better we're on holiday - we've closed the guesthouse for a whole month, for a well earned bit of R&R. I for one aim to enjoy my delayed maternity leave! At the end of this coming week we head to Tahiti en route for a week in New Zealand. It's been more than a year since I left PF, so I'll be glad for an injection of 'Big City' life!!!!! But before that happens we have lots to do to get ready for our 'Tree Day' which kicks off on thursday and runs 'til saturday, with a big meal and another visit from Maeva and Marco.



Other breaking news.....
Heimana is just starting on solids, here she is (above) enjoying her first homemade carrot, potato and umara puree. Unfortunately, along with her appetite for REAL food comes teething, it's early, but the signs are there - she's drooling like crazy, is avidly mauling anything within grasping distance, our fingers, her hands, my breast, she's also as grumpy as I've ever seen her, poor little thing.....so she's been getting lots of attention and distraction!

Her intensive exercise regime continues - who said you can't run before you can sit up?











Matotea's 'balloons' which, in the past few months have morphed through wiggly lines and dots have now magically turned into blob people overnight. This is a family scene, daddy and mummy blob (center and far left, respectively) are accompanied by Matotea (flattened blob in bottom left corner, see how she is symbolically placed beneath us, I interpret this as an early attempt to express her angst at being suppressed by her parents, we alwys spoil all her fun ;-) ) and Heimana (who initially was NOT going to be included - who wants a baby sister anyway? - actually appears here with arms and legs).

Wales beat Samoa in the rugby albeit unconvincingly, my alliances are a bit split here particularly as the Samoan team were playing "for the tsunami victims", but anyway it's just fun to be able to follow the rugby from Rurutu - once more let me say YAY for internet!