My second favourite feral plant (nothing can beat the Cape Gooseberry)

I'm not really into the idea of monetising this blog. I decided therefore to friendinate it. By that I mean share the story as it unfolds with groups of friends and see what happens. I did this when I published the previous post and I'm already excited about the results.

The photo above is of a box of bush lemons from Tuntable Creek near Nimbin that were given to me by my friend Kim and her man Ken. They have excellent juiciness and zestiness, great colour, and are relatively blemish free. Bush lemons are a naturalised (feral) plant in Australia, and they grow well in subtropical climates like Northern NSW.

I took some of these into Harvey's where PJ gave them his tick of approval "Excellent, excellent!". I have offered Ken 6 dozen crown seal home brew bottles so he may well be bringing some more up with him next time. Awesome!

Another outcome of my friendination is that I have discovered that my friend Marilyn is a keen Limoncello maker. This is great news as Tony has expressed interest in making Limoncello and I have expressed an interest in drinking it. Marilyn says it takes about 8 weeks to make which is neither here nor there for me but good to know none the less. She also loves bush lemons and thanks to good timing received a fullsome bag of bush lemons on her doorstep last Friday.

My first trip to the countryside

My first trip to the countryside in Lavinia the danube blue Citroen DS was a bit of an emergency dash. Because of a paper work issue I had to take her down to Northern New South Wales to get safety checked. I decided to use my mate Tony's mechanic Fred who is based in Federal and was sure to pass her without trouble, which he did.

I have been hearing stories from friends in the Northern Rivers region of lemons of various types growing abundantly and often going to waste. After visiting the Rosebank Coop where my friend Rowena works her magic with baked goods and high level organisational skills, I decided it would be worthwhile to consider asking her/coop to preserve the lemons when the season comes around. This, I think, is an elegant solution and can only serve to engage the local community around the coop and beyond, which is precisely what Rowena is all about.

I can't sign off on this post till I've told you about the farm. Tony and the family have been looking after it well, planting new citrus, davidson plums, and an assortment of other orchard trees. Tony has nearly finished his house which I will show in a later post. He is constantly improving the property with new fences and removing the pesky camphor laurels. The place was gorgeous as always, very green (as you can see above) and never overgrown or over tended.