Autumn Abundance

So here we are, with all the leaves falling down and lying in untidy piles in the garden - autumn gardens are not in their best dress!  But we do enjoy the less frenetic pace of autumn, as opposed to the hectic pace of spring and summer gardening.  Instead of going into the garden for an everyday harvest, we now only wander around every second or third day - collecting a large box of feijoas (yes, they still fall!), potatoes, carrots and the amazing old-fashioned jerusalem artichokes!  Yumm!!  I love to be able to give some away to others who have not been aquainted yet, to this old vegetable!  Most tend to have a favourable reaction.

Autumn harvest includes figs, courgettes, capsicums, limes, feijoas and chillies!

On the weekend I made spicey sweet Thai Chilli sauce - 2 batches (10 bottles)!  Mike had brought me a little bell-shaped looking pepper, which I bit into the end of and thought - "how lovely and sweet - wouldn't they just taste divine, stuffed with feta cheese and baked in the oven?' - so I set about saving the seed and then proceeded to sow them.  They came up - every one of them, and so I went a little overboard and set about planting them all over the garden, wherever I could find a space.  Well, they grew!  And grew!  And they produced these angel-winged bell-like fruits.  I was ever so excited as I patiently waited for them to turn red.  Then realising that I would be harvesting 100's of them, I decided to give some to my work colleagues who marvelled at how lovely and sweet they were, until they went home with them and ate the whole "pepper", only to discover that my lovely winged peppers were indeed, actually chillis!

Eek, apart from possibly frightening the hell out of their taste buds, I wondered just what I would do with so many chillies!  We have given bags of them to any innocent visitors, including all our lovely Indian friends, who are most likely the ones to be able to use these hot little wonders, easily!  Then I had an epiphany - sweet Thai Chilli sauce and hey presto, Google did the rest for me!

For any of you out there who would like to use up your homegrown chillies - here it is:

Sweet Thai Chilli Sauce:

500g fresh red chillies

3 cloves garlic peeled 

750ml apple cider vinegar (3 cups)

3 cups caster sugar

Halve the chillies and place in a bowl of a food processor, along with garlic.  De-seed the rest of the chillies and place in food processor.  Add 250ml vinegar and process.

Place chilli mixture, remaining vinegar and caster sugar in large saucepan over low heat and cook, stirring for 5 mins until sugar dissolves.

Increase heat to high and bring to the boil.  Reduce heat and simmer, stirring occassionally for 35-40 mins until sauce thickens.  Pour into sterilised, airtight bottles and seal.

Not sure how hot this is yet...........  The seeds pack a power punch of heat, so de-seed all the chillies if you prefer less heat.

Feijoas looking for a good home.....

Oh, and to fill in some time, I have enrolled in an organic horticulture correspondence course over a year, hoping to get a good deal of it done over the winter months.  Learning about what I know quite a bit about through practice, but now I shall gain the theory behind why I do what I do, sometimes out of intuition, sometimes from what I have read and sometimes from advice from others who are successful at what they do!

Our ripening hand of bananas, with many more to follow.

I best go and put in some hard graft with the course..................... perhaps I will learn what else one can sustainably do with chillies.........