Tea towels are the new bumper sticker – there are so many cute designs in homewares shops these days. But this is the current favourite in my kitchen. It was a wedding gift from Lisa & Heather at Mapua Country Trading. Makes me laugh every time I look at it… as I load the dishwasher…

It took an hour to peel, chop and core the quinces and another to simmer them until they were tender enough to puree, then eight hours in the slow cooker and about the same again in muffin tins in the oven at 100C… but in the end my quince paste turned out just like the bought stuff.

Would I make it again? Hell no! Now I understand why it costs so much for those tiny tubs at the delicatessen. My advice? Just make quince jam and spread it on your cheese and crackers instead of slicing it up on your cheeseboard. It tastes the same for about 10 per cent of the hassle.

(Although having said, I’ve just switched the slow cooker on again to have my first crack at making nier beurre, or black butter. Traditionally made from cider and cooking apples on the island of Jersey, this molassses-coloured preserve is cooked in a cauldron over an open fire for three days, all the while being stirred continuously. I read about it Country Living magazine last year and have been willing my apples to ripen ever since.)

I took my secateurs for a walk today. My intention was to harvest the hop vines on the stables and chop back the triffid-like tendrils of the passionfruit vine to let a little light in to ripen the last fruit, but I got sidetracked picking flowers instead. Though our wedding garden is now a bit of a shambles (the lawn’s still in fine shape but the cosmos is falling over on itself, I haven’t dead-headed the dahlias since February 18 and sparrows have stripped every seed from the sunflowers, leaving only hollow husks in varying states of decay), there are plenty of flowers to pick.

I’ve still got single-flowered dahlias, white, pink and burgundy cosmos, Shirley poppies, zinnias, coneflowers and shasta daisies in pastel shades, as well as orange cosmos, coppery coreopsis and red gaillardias in the wildflower border. Most only last a few days in a vase (or jug; I’m a compulsive jug collector), which doesn’t matter a toss because there’s plenty more where they came from.

I’m going to go mad for flowers next spring and plant a proper “picking garden” on the terraced hill behind our house. It’s such an old-fashioned concept, a cut flower border, but I’m not sure why. After all, a vege patch is really just an edible picking garden.

My must-haves? Well, I’ve only just started planning but I know I definitely want:

1. Sedum ‘Autumn Joy’, for its rusty-red blooms at this time of the year.
2. Masses of Russell lupins. They’re a bit borderline in terms of the climate but I’ll give them a go anyway.
3. Honesty, for its papery seed pods.
4. Orlaya grandiflora ‘White Lace’. I just adore this plant; and was amazed that the delicate lacy flowers last for well over a week in the vase.
5. Love-in-a-mist. It’s probably hopeless for picking but it’s so pretty I don’t really mind.
6. White clary sage. I’d forgotten this gorgeous plant existed until I went to Southland in March and was given a glorious little tussie-mussie posy with it in it. Now I can’t wait to grow it again!
7. Fragrant sweet peas. I’m going to sow them along the farm fence and hope the cows don’t chew them.
8. Solomon’s seal. Another perennial I used to grow but haven’t in years. Mum was complaining to me tonight that her clump is getting out of control, so that’s easily fixed. I’ll take to it with a spade and steal all the extra bits for my garden.
9. Pink, purple and white echinacea.
10. ‘Shaggy’ astrantias.
Plus the new Parva Plants catalogue arrived on my desk this week. I’m afraid to open it. I fear for my credit card. So many gorgeous perennials… and so little time to get them in the ground before I can no longer see over my belly to plant anything!

I always add crabapples to my cider. They add a bit of extra bite to a blend of cooking apples, if you’re using them (like I do) because you can’t get your hands on true cider apples, like the marvellously named ‘Slack my Girdle’, ‘Broxwood Foxwhelp’ and ‘Tom Putt’.  (These varieties are available in New Zealand, though you’ll have to get your local garden centre to order them for you. )

I have three favourite crabapples. Purely for spring beauty, I adore Malus ioensis ‘Plena’. This ornamental variety doesn’t produce proper fruit – it blows everything in its arsenal on a marvellous display of bright pinky-red buds that open to pale pink spring blossoms.

But for fruit, I think ‘Jack Humm’ and ‘Jelly King’ are the perfect pair. ‘Jack Humm’ has masses of vibrant red fruit, so vibrant that they look like those small fake red apples sold as Christmas decorations. The fruit is slightly oval in shape, and just utterly, utterly beautiful in autumn.

‘Jelly King’ isn’t quite as spectacular but, as its name suggests, its blushing orange/red fruit make lovely crabapple jelly. It’s absolutely prolific and the birds tend to leave the fruit alone until quite late in autumn. But, more importantly, I like ‘Jelly King’ because it’s perfect for making teeny tiny toffee apples. I made a batch of them today in between stirring the quince paste and scooping feijoas into jars to preserve.

Toffee apples are never as nice as you think they’re going to be. Not just because you end up with sticky gloop all over your face, but because the toffee’s generally too sweet to eat in such a large dose, and the apple is invariably all soft and mushy underneath. Which is where the crabapple really comes into its own: crabapples are crisp,tart and utterly terrific-tasting with a coat of toffee.

To make a dozen toffee crabapples, wipe the fruit, twist out the stalks and cut out the little hard bit on the base of each apple. (I’m sure there’s a technical horticultural term for this but blowed if I can think of it right now.) Then press a kebab stick into each apple.

To make the toffee, you need 1 cup sugar, 1 teaspoon vinegar (use cider vinegar if you have it, otherwise white vinegar), 1 teaspoon butter, a couple of drops of red food colouring and 3 tablespoons water. Place in a small pot and bring to the boil, stirring until the sugar has dissolved, then boil for 2-3 minutes, until a small dribble dropped into a cup of cold water turns hard and thread-like. Don’t take your eye off it as it turns from red clear toffee to burnt brown caramel in a matter of seconds. Take the pot off the heat, tilt it to one side and then dip the apples in, give them a slow spin to evenly coat in toffee, then place on a piece of baking paper on a tray. The toffee only takes a minute or two to set, which is about as long as it will also take you to chomp down the first one… and then a second…

I’m spending this weekend slaving over a hot stove… and I couldn’t be happier. I’m making like a squirrel (albeit a squirrel armed with a fruit peeler, corer, Agee jars and an old Perfit Seal Home Preserver) and packing the pantry with preserves. Last weekend we dealt to most of the pears; this weekend I’ve got quinces, apples and feijoas to pickle, brew and bottle.

Jason came home today with an aromatic quince from one of the neighbours’ trees. “What’s this?” he said. (The neighbour didn’t know either.)  “A quince,” I said. But little did he know that, in one of those funny coincidences, I had a whole box of them in the back of my car too. I got them from my colleague Rachel, whose parents have amazing quince trees in their beautiful garden in Waimamaku in Northland. I promised Rachel that I’d give her a bottle of preserved quinces in return for the raw fruit, though since then I’ve found a recipe on the net for quince vodka. I suspect she’d rather like that too! I’m also going to make quince paste, which is really just fancy boiled-down quince jam.

This evening, just before it got dark, I put on my raincoat (it has rained here all day) and whipped out to the orchard to pick the last bucket of ‘Winter Banana’ and ‘Liberty’ apples, plus a good handful of ‘Jelly King’ crabapples. I’ll use some of the crabapples to add a bit of extra bite to my next batch of Walter the Saint’s Speedy cider (this recipe is fairly legendary in NZ Gardener circles, as the first time I made it it exploded in my lounge like a sugar bomb).

I’m going to use that speedy cider recipe to put down a few bottles of pear cider and some feijoa wine. And I’m keen to try this recipe from Kumeu gardener Linda Isbister, who shared it with NZ Gardener a couple of years back. You need: 5kg of feijoas (scoop out the flesh, freeze, thaw then squash it), 6 litres of boiling water and 2 camden tablets (from home brewing stores). Place in a big bucket with a lid and stir twice a day for three days. Then strain into another bucket (cover it with cheesecloth to keep the bugs out) or a large fermenting bin (fitted with an airlock if possible) and add one sachet of wine yeast and 2 teaspoons of yeast nutrients (both from home brewing stores), plus 4kg of sugar and another 2 litres of water. Leave until it stops bubbling… which could be a month, or several. Then bottle. Yum!

I’ve just harvested my first crop of homegrown almonds. Well, it’s probably stretching it a little to describe 13 almonds as a “crop”, but given that my trees have only been in the ground for 18 months, I figure I’m lucky to get any at all.

I’ve put in 40 almond trees here – 10 each of four different varieties: ‘403’, ‘CY750’, ‘Fabrin’ and ‘Monovale’. (They have such romantic names!) Most of them are in our windswept orchard, but I planted the ‘Monovale’ trees on the sheltered bank below our house. It has proved to be a wise decision (which, to be honest, was actually born of laziness; I just couldn’t be bothered lugging the last bundle of bare-root trees down to the paddock) because the ‘Monovale’ trees are now at least twice as tall and twice as healthy as their compatriots. Plus, in early spring, all I can see from the downstairs bedroom window is a cloud of pink blossom. Almond blossoms leave cherries for dead. Unfortunately, that early blossom is both a blessing and a curse, as the flowers are frost-tender. Six severe frosts in a row last year wiped out any chance of a crop from our other varieties out in the open.

Fresh almonds, as you can see from the photo, look like small unripe peaches. Some varieties split open when they’re ripe to reveal the brown shell around the kernel inside, but ‘Monovale’ doesn’t seem to do that. So, a couple of weeks back, I picked a trial nut and left it on the kitchen windowsill to dry. The fleshy outer part of the fruit slowly shrank and shrivelled until I could peel it off the hard-shelled nut. I took to that with a sledgehammer (mental note to self: buy a nutcracker) today and – wow – out popped a perfectly formed almond. And – double wow! – the flavour was incredible. It was as sweet as marzipan and as marzipan-y as, well, marzipan Christmas cake icing. Which, incidentally, is one of my all-time favourite flavours. Here’s hoping that by this time next year, I’ll be able to make my own.

You can order almond trees from garden centres for winter planting. Waimea Nurseries supplies two recommended varieties for home gardens – the dwarf ‘Garden Prince’ and ‘All-in-One’. Find out more at their website.

What a week of highs and lows. From the joy of last weekend, when Jason and I shared our wedding day with all of our friends and family members – including several aunts, uncles, cousins and gardening industry colleagues who had flown up from Christchurch – to the utter, utter devastation of Tuesday’s quake.

My heart just goes out to everyone in Canterbury in the wake of this tragedy. My thoughts are with you all, now and in the dark days ahead.

Sometimes the only things that bring comfort at times like these, especially for those of us observing from a distance, are the little things. Things like sowing seeds – a symbol of hope and optimism for the future – or pulling weeds or planting trees.

Whenever I think of Christchurch, that fine, proud, beautiful garden city, I think of the swathes of English bluebells along the banks of the Avon River, and the cheerful daffs that sprout beneath those mighty old deciduous trees around Hagley Park. Daffodils and bluebells that, despite this week’s horror, will resolutely bloom again come spring. I’m going to plant some under the oak trees here in my garden. It’s the only thing I can think of to do today, even in such a small way, to pay tribute to those lost.

What a magic day. They say your wedding day is one of those days you’ll never forget, and they’re right. It was perfect from start to finish (though as the only sober one at the party, I was definitely ready for bed by the time the last guests hit the tequila at 3am!) 

I think we all scrubbed up rather nicely! Jason (aka the Hunk, now the Hubby) was looking super spiffy in his new suit (civil engineering contractors don’t generally have much call for for fancy-pants menswear), I wore a simple (and stretchy) frock to accommodate the baby bump and even Mr Puppy Doo-hawg agreed to a shampoo and blow wave (well, a wash and a dry roll in the dusty gravel on the driveway at least). We had wonderful weather, the garden looked gorgeous, the guests ate, drank and were merry, and it all went off without a hitch.

I adored my big bouquet of colourful mixed dahlias from Davina at Vida Flores. Davina added a funky off-centre trail of asparagus fern studded with wee Bells of Ireland (Molucella laevis). I’ve always loved their stately lime green spires but have never managed to grow them successfully, so that’s on my to-do list to master next season. I’ll order seeds to sow from Kings Seeds and, green fingers crossed, they’ll be in bloom by this time next year.

The Sunday Star Times also snapped a nice pic of the pair of us standing in the middle of the wildflower border. You can read their story here.