coastal harvests

Hello again! 

Another post for May! Who would have thought I had it in me? My lovely friend at little red gumboots told me she was aiming for a post a week, but I don't have anywhere near the level of social life that she does, so sporadic posts it is for me!

First I would like to share a snapshot of the yummy things coming out of my garden: fresh oranges, passion fruit, salad greens (spinach, rocket, tatsoi and shallots) and a whole lot of tomatoes!

In the interest of the many veggie gardens and fruit trees we have scattered around the place, my mum and I went on the hunt for mushroom compost and found the real deal (i.e. not processed, over packaged and then sold-on for ridiculously inflated prices) at Margin's Mushrooms. The owner was kind enough to give us a tour of his mushroom farm (cool room after cool room of mushroomy goodness!), and he even gave us a few Swiss Browns to take home and try (woo! samples! and they were delicious!). We left with quite a few bricks of mushroom compost, half of which have already disappeared into the veggie gardens, we'll probably have some lovely huge cabbages and peas if we can keep the darn caterpillars off them!

My second random trip of the week was to Little Creek, a family business producing handmade gourmet cheese. This little shop was like a temple to cheese, and I love that the cheese production area was in the next room and could be seen through a window. The cheese selection was great, from hard tasty to ultra soft fromage (or quark) in a variety of flavours (olive being my favourite!). All were available for sampling, and I think I tasted pretty much every product before narrowing down which I wanted to buy (always a tough choice when it comes to cheese!).

Lastly, the Buy Local festival is on this weekend, so Coasties, get out there and support your local businesses!