Rosella Jam Recipe Quick And Delicious

Rosella is an amazing plant. You can eat the leaves, the calyx are great for tea, jam or to add into dishes. After trying few different recipes how to do Rosella Jam, I have found my own way to make it simple, quick, easy and delicious. There is no need to cook the seedpods to add some pectin into your jam. The calyx got more than enough of it as well.

Ewa's Rosella Jam

Remove the seedpods from the Rosella calyx. You can cut or blend the calyx into small pieces if you like but I like my jam with some bigger chunks in it.

Take 1 1/2 cups of raw sugar, 1/2 cup of water and juice from one lemon per 4 cups of fresh Rosella calyx. Cook it on low heat until reduced to your liking :) Check the consistency on a cold plate after 15 minutes of cooking. Most of the time I'm having about 6 cups of fresh Rosellas to cook and the jam is ready to fill into the glasses about that time. 

And here the video how I do it:

Tips:

• The best way for me to sterilize the glasses and lids is to rinse them with boiling water after cleaning them.

Relaxing Permaculture Food Forest Tour With Plant Labels

I hope you enjoy my food forest tour today with many plant labels including scientific names to help you identify and remember the plants you are interested in. There are more plants I didn't mention so if you liked this video I will do a next one with the remaining ones. I will go into details about all these plants in my following videos. Enjoy!

My Food Forest Garden March 2017 Photos

Few photos from my garden :) Its getting bushy and I love it.

Rosella Bush

Capsicum

Parsley

Longevity Spinach 

Burgundy Okra

Pumpkin

Horseradish 

Perennial Basil

Curry Tree

Tree Spinach

Sweet Leaf

Lime Tree

Chili Garlic Organic Pest Control

Here the recipe for my Chili Garlic Tea I am using to get rid of the white mould on my plants and for many different pests in my garden. I always got it in my garden shed, ready to use.

I take about 1 cup of chilies and 8-10 cloves of garlic, crash it together in a food processor, add it into about 1.5L of water. Bring it to boil, lower the heat and simmer for about 10 minutes. Take off the heat, leave until cool. Drain through the sieve and keep the tee it in a jar. Before spraying, dilute 1:2, one part of the chili-garlic tea : two parts of water. Ready is your spray :)

Here my short video showing one of my zucchini plant before and after. Hope you like it :)

My Young Subtropical Food Forest

Hi guys :) Here some update from one of my gardens. It is about 1 1/2 years old so not old at all. I got three of them but this one is in focus now. Trying to create a permaculture food forest. Today just wanting to share with you what is happening here at the moment. I hope you like it.

How To Start A Healthy Garden

Most of the food we grow require reach and well drained soil. Therefore the best way to grow it are raised garden beds. The materials we use to build them are either recycled materials or they come from our property.
Never use treated timber to build your veggie patch. It is full of harmful chemicals and this s the last thing you want to have in your veggie patch.

We fill the garden beds or veggie patches with the following layers starting from the bottom:

1. Card boards
2. Different kind of mulch, straw or hay. It can be fresh.
3. Aged mulch mixed with chicken or horse manure and some wood ash
4. Some potting or soil mix on top

The best you can do it now is to water it once a day and wait for a couple of weeks or more depends on how old was the manure and the mulch you used. This is how I do it and from my experience I can tell you that it works and my plants are growing.

You need some fertilizer to grow your veggies. The best and healthiest way is to grow organic. However, you need to follow a few simple rules to make sure the organic gardening will benefit you and your family.

Here some tips I got from my parents who grew up on a farm growing food with their parents in the old fashion way:

• use fresh/raw manure only while building a new garden bed
• use composted manure before sowing, planting or if you want to fertilize your plants; the raw/fresh manure is very concentrated and can burn your plants or seeds
• IMPORTANT! Never use a raw/fresh manure as a surface application on already growing plants or veggies. The fresh manure may still contain active bacteria which can contaminate your veggies and cause some human disease.... Proper composting will kill these bacteria
• If you decide to use fresh manure on already growing plants, the best way to do it is to dilute it in water, leave it for few days and water your garden beds pouring the water strait into the soil and NOT over the plants.
• always wash your hands after you are finished with your gardening

And here few photos of my veggie and plant beds in few different stages of building.

This is just a beginning of a new veggie patch made of old pallets. You can get them for free at some shops or companies. Look around in your area to find them.

Finished veggie patch made of pallets. I also closed the gaps with some old skirtings from our local recycling centre shop.

New start of a new plant bed. Made from old trees from our property.

Raised garden beds made from an old tree.

Veggie patch made from old trees.

Veggie patch made from an old garage door. Paid just few $ for the whole garage door at our local recycling centre shop.

  

Lemongrass

Lemongrass is one of the easiest plants to grow. It grows pretty much everywhere and doesn’t need any special treatment. You can plant your lemongrass plants out in the backyard or in the pot. It smells and taste amazing, look good in your garden and the health benefits are amazing. That is why I would like to share it with you here.

About one year old plant.

I’m using the whole plant, the soft, inner part of the stalks for cooking, especially with chicken and fish dishes and the grassy leafs for tea. The tea is yummy and since I cooked my first lemongrass tea about two years ago, I don’t need any other tea for breakfast. I use about 1 teaspoon of dried leaves is enough for about 500ml hot water
or make it stronger and drink to improve your health as Lemongrass has been recommended for stomachaches, diarrhea, gas, bowel spasms, vomiting, fever, the flu, and headaches and other types of pain.

Other lemongrass benefits:

• Use it to make lemongrass oil or soap.The oil is used to cleanse oily skin, and in aromatherapy it is used as a relaxant
• Dry it and burn it for bug repellent Lemongrass has insect repellent properties and has an ingredient in citronella
• Grow it near your Deck or Porch to repel insects and Reptiles
• Use Lemongrass in the bath for a soothing aromatherapy experience by placing a mesh bag with a handful of leaves under the running bath water, then letting the bag soak in the water with you as you bathe. Very relaxing.

Preparing the tea:

Place one or two fresh leaves in a cup, cut into 1 or 2 inch lengths, or one or two leaves worth of dried lemongrass leaves. Pour boiling water over the leaves and leave to steep for 10 or 15 minutes. Leaves can also be placed in a tea pot and water added. Use more leaves for a larger pot of tea, but adjust the amount to suit your personal taste.

Our Backyard May 2015

Lots of news here in the garden. Our first bunch of bananas was really yummy! I did a nice dinner using the banana flower. Now, the next bunch is growing and the next banana flower has been eaten. Our guinea fowls and chooks are happy birds and the ducks went to the freezer. We were hoping for at least one girl but no. We had four boys which started to fight and chase each other the whole day so their time has come…. Well, this is life, and we got some beautiful organic meat in the freezer. Here some update of our backyard.

This is our passion fruit. You can find the flowers, the green and the ripe fruits on the bush. Everything at the same time Love it!

Araukaras enjoying the day

 Japanese bantams

 Bananas

 Pineapples plants