Michael, coming from Irish stock, the potato is close to my heart (and stomach) and has been a staple carbohydrate on these shores for over 300 years.....and yet, for the past decade, it is impossible to buy a potato which can be made into crispy chips. Yep, we grow many varieties, both floury and waxy so why this should be an issue, I honestly don't know. I suspect the supermarket (and public) fetish for clean spuds is behind this travesty because the days of buying a brown paper sack of unwashed potatoes seems like a distant dream. Varieties such as King Edward, Maris Piper etc, have always been grown (and still are) yet they are either kept in cold stores or somehow kept for mass consumption throughout the year and now make for miserable soggy, tasteless chips. Why? Are we all so used to microwave, reconstituted 'fries'? I couldn't say but here, digging the first Kestrel second earlies has something of a treasure hunt about it. Kestrels are lovely potatoes, often seen on the show bench, but never in the shops (yields are not massive) but the taste is like no other - a straight down trip to childhood, where we all ate plain boiled 'tatties' with a knob of butter.....or sauteed them, or made layer bakes, or potato cakes....but best of all, chips. And then, to compound the nutritional sin, we often doubled our carbs by filling non-nutritious soft white bread with as many chips as we could hold (doused with salt and vinegar obvs) and dipped the fatty but delicious treat in ketchup (and those of us who had been 'on the continent' might even add mayo). Of course, growing veg is a battle from start to finish - my allotment is an obstacle course of old timber, various netting, fleeces, mesh, wires, strings and other critter deterrents (the hateful pigeons are my bete noir) and, if left alone, we would have nothing - certainly not a single fruit (but the blackbirds would be fat) or green leaf to be seen. As for sweetcorn - a short-lived but delicious treat (although the much lauded 3 sisters method is a bit of a joke) - we tend to grow a shorter variety and eat the fresh ears rather than tall maize ground for cornmeal. Also, I never bother with ridiculous crops (for the UK) such as okra (vile anyway), sweet potatoes, tomatillos, goji berries, or bitter oriental greens, nor do I crave mangoes, pineapples and avocados (when we grow the best apples, plums and cherries in the world).....but I have fought a bitter (losing) battle against the horrible peach leaf curl and do without peaches, nectarines or apricots.....but my son and I are grafting vines next year and planting mulberries (although I probably won't be around to eat them, my grand-daughter might). And then there are almonds, filberts, walnuts...........

I posted a lengthy piece yesterday but my laptop or web connection failed me. In summary: I doubled back to get the crunchy jackfruit but the fruitstand was closed. However, a farmer owned relatively large supermarket up the stree not only had jackfruit but also abiu. Sweet. Later that day we drove to Mossman and I happened to find a fruit stand (see link below). "Dee", the +70 year old proprieter of the 300 acre family farm is amazing. we bought mamey sapotesm huge biriba, huge custard apples and more. But the list she has of her fruit trees is even more amazing. She grew up among Asians and thus got a taste for tropical fruit. She has scores of varieties, some I have never heard of (even after seeing seemingly everything of this site!). Much are straight from the Asian tropics. Champedak, marang, mango, sapodilla, jackfruit, rambi, rambutan, wax jambu - she has it all. And a whole bunch of items unfamiliar too me. Awesome. My only regret was not taking a picture of the chalkboard list she had of her trees. She did show me her scrapbook with pictures of harvests...delightful. She says her are 4 family members alone pick all the fruit. Can you imagine? The tropics in Australia, btw, are as tropical as tropical gets. Here is a link that might be useful: Scomazzons Roadside Stall

Wishing our Australian CF friends a great day!! And prayers for clear skies and quick flood recovery.

heck in some areas, it isn't cool to plant petunias in an old toilet in the yard... so, then what does one do? mosaic it of course! I remember when 'altered books' was an issue!!.lol I remember being one who frowned on that concept.. boy did I get my thinking cap turned around.. there are fabulous things done with books.. I had to let go of the 'don't bend the corners' of the books..tight ingraining I had to relearn. chances are high that others will see your GOG and want to make their own.. how else do things catch on? it's all appreciated here, for sure! Becky .(*_*).