It’s almost exactly the middle of winter, and the seed-saving tasks left over from summer are coming to an end – just tomatoes and sunflowers still to sort out…
Collecting tomato seed was described here, while photos of the tomato seed fermenting in their own juices can be found midway down the article here. 
From here on, it’s only a matter of pouring the seedy fluid onto carefully-labelled absorbent paper kitchen towels and setting them to dry on a sunny window sill.
Quite some effort goes into harvesting and processing our ‘Lazy Wife’ bean seed for use next summer. And not just for our own backyard garden – by disseminating surplus seed, I am able to encourage others to grow on this wonderful old heritage variety of green eating bean.
These beans were shelled over a month ago, and have been kept ever since in an open sieve in a dry sunny spot away from mice and damp. With a cold wind blowing outside under grey skies, the laborious task of ‘bean sorting’ holds more appeal than usual…
Almost one third of the crop that was shelled is unfit for seed-saving. These seeds are separated out by firstly sieving out the small seeds and debris through the large sieve in which they have been air drying. Then all the seeds that are distorted, discoloured, misshapen, wrinkled or already under attack by bean weevils are hand-picked out of there and thrown into the compost.
Good seeds have uniform size, shape and colour. This careful selection process ensures that the ‘best-of-the-breed’ continues on.
The big danger for bean seed is the inevitable ‘bean weevil’. Even though only a few months have past since the pods were picked and dried, some seeds are already showing the tell-tell signs of bean weevil attack; one or more small neat 1mm diameter holes drilled right through the dried bean seed. And sure enough, a vigorous shake of the bean sieve sprinkles a number of these 2mm long culprits out onto the kitchen table; the little devils can be seen below taking this opportunity to make more bean weevil eggs!
So the hand-selected beans are placed in old coffee tins (my standard seed containers) and will spend 24 hours in the deep freezer to kill off all weevil eggs remnant in the bean seed; the bean seeds will themselves survive these low temperatures
With the arrival of grey skies and the onset of the gentle winter rains here on the Adelaide Plains, one might easily forget the vast arid desert on our doorstep to the north, a desert twice the size of Germany in South Australia alone. Not for nothing are we known as the driest state in the driest continent. Yet despite almost thirty years living with the Aussie gardener, the German cook has seen almost nothing of this vast hinterland. So with the rains sustaining the garden, there was just time for a one week dash north into the sunshine, and a memorable helicopter flight over Lake Eyre and Cooper Creek where it crosses the Birdsville Track.
While we relish all the usual soft summer fruits such as figs, peaches, apricots, grapes and nectarines, plums and berries, winter time on the Adelaide Plains is citrus time; oranges, lemons, limes, mandarins and grapefruit flourish and provide plenty of Vitamin C just as the rest of the population starts to catch colds and flu.
Plenty of green things are doing well – broccoli, silver beet, beetroot, fennel, nettles, peas and potatoes.
Garlic, leeks and onions are also underway; their biggest competition in this rich black soil comes from self-seeding nettles which will swamp them unless hoed out.
Down in the asparagus beds, the ferns have died off and will soon be cut back with hedge shears to allow the asparagus spears room to poke through in spring. Once trimmed off, compost made over several years in a Gedye Bin from household scraps will be added to the bed to keep the fertility up.
Bung them in the food processor and process until you have some slushy mush or mushy slush.
Mix with the other ingredients.
Cook, then put into a heatproof dish to steam until done. I don't have a steamer, hence this weird contraption. I had to steam it a lot longer, due to that, too.
This is the end result.
We had it stir-fried (also known as 'carrot cake' in Singapore. It's not a cake and does not have any carrots in it.) But this is another story. :)
4 eggs - lightly beaten
Stir until it thickens, then pour into clean, sterilised jars.
It's really nice, and even if you are not a big fan of grapefruit, you might like it. It doesn't taste too grapefruity. Just has a nice tang.
