I bought in most of the onion harvest some 3-5 weeks ago and they have been in storage since. I planted mostly Cream Golds. I planted 120-odd, thinking this would be nowhere near enough.

Well, they grew … and grew … and grew, thriving on complete neglect. I have harvested about 100 of them (the others either bolted too early or wandered off into the neighbours or simply absconded), and they were huge. I mean huge.

At the moment I am slicing and dicing them (thank you so much to the person who invented electric mandolins) and I have got through 10 (hey, they are big!) and those 10 have produced over thirty cups of diced onions. That means 300 cups of diced onions.

Will that be enough for one girl for a year? That is almost 6 cups of onions a week to get through.

I think that’s enough.

I won’t dice them all but it is a great way of storing them for ease of use through the year once the fresh ones have been finished.

This weekend I need to get a start on the potatoes - mashing them and freezing them as well.

Well, the kitchen is done bar a few small details, and I am going to make you WAIT to see it. It is a mess now as I am moving things back in.

The six weeks went smoothly until the final week when I mentioned to the builder that I could smell gas in the kitchen.

“That’s new paint smell” he said.

I was dubious, and in order to set my mind at rest the builder said he’d get the gas plumber around.

So, by now convinced I was being a silly woman imagining things, I waited for the plumber to come about. Eventually I saw his van and there was a knock at the back door, and I opened it mouth open, about to apologise for wasting his time.

He didn’t allow me to get out a single word.

“You have a major leak,” he said, “get out here now!”

Wow! The excitement! As it turned out, I had TWO leaks, one minor, one devastatingly major.

The plumber took me around the front of the house where the gas meter itself was hissing out gas. Major leak. “I’m going to make a phone call for you,” the plumber said, and rang the gas company, and I swear to God before he’d hung up trucks were braking to a halt in front of my house and servicemen were piling out armed with their spray bottles of soapy water. I wish I could always get tradies here that fast.

“Could have taken out the block,” was the pronouncement as the gas company men replaced the meter. Once that was done they took a pressure reading and, oh no, there was a leak further up in the house as well.

After much ado they found the leak behind my newly installed kitchen cabinetry. Gas plumber blamed the builder, builder blamed the gas plumber. But that, too, was fixed with relatively little ado and you can’t tell from the cabinetry it had to be taken apart so the plumber could fix the minor leak.

I am glad I still have a house and a life!

And I am glad I don’t smoke. Just one person lighting up near that major gas leak ….

Dave Freer asked me to talk a little about dehydrating - so here it is.

Dehydrating is one of my favourite ways of preserving the harvest for several reasons: it preserves most of the nutritional content (often destroyed in heated means of preserving, like bottling), you need add no sugar or vinegar (again, like bottling, or canning), it is chemical free (unlike many commercial products), and it requires no electricity to keep it (like freezing). I love dried fruits, and always try to get in bulk fruit in season and do great batches of apples, peaches and cantaloupe, my favourite fruits.

Apart from fruits I dehydrate most of my excess vegetable harvest, carrots, zucchini, onion (sometimes), tomatoes, potato, capsicums, chilli, whatever I have left over and would like to keep. You can reconstitute them by soaking them in water, or just chuck them into casseroles and stews and soups as they are. You can keep cubes of dehydrated vegies as soup stock (just add water), or instant soups.

There are some vegetables that are best left to dry naturally - bush beans and peas being the principle ones. These I generally leave to dry on the bush/vine, or pick once the pod is drying out and leave them in the greenhouse. If you do them in a dehydrator they tend to lose colour.

The kind of dehydrator you buy is important. You need a model that will give you an adjustable drying temperature - because it is far, far better to dehydrate at 42 C or lower (a cool temperature) than to destroy the nutrients in the food at 80 C or above (which is where most fixed temperature dehydrators are set). At that temperature you are virtually cooking them. If you dehydrate at the lower tempt (42 C or lower) then you preserve most of the nutrients. It may take longer, but you get better food with a brighter colour than if you fry it at above 42 C.

You should also consider how much food you want to dehydrate. My dehydrator (an Ezidri Ultra FD1000) expands to 30 trays - and I can be using all of those trays often. A single large pumpkin can take up those 30 trays.

Some people use salt to help dehydrate their vegies - I don’t at all. I may sometimes add herbs, but not salt.

You can prevent pale fruits (like apples) from discolouring in the dehydrating process by give them a brief soak in water with added lemon juice or citric acid (I use either - maybe a couple of lemons’ worth of juice to a 5 litre bowl or a couple of tablespoons of citric acid). All fruits will discolour a little when dehydrating, but I find this keeps apples to a deep cream. Don’t worry about discolouration - it doesn’t spoil the food, and is better than the bleaching processes of commercial dried fruits and vegies.

Storing the dried foods - I always use airtight glass jars, either very clean and dry or I sterilise them in the oven for 30 minutes (wash jars in hot water, place in oven on a towel at about 110 C for about 30 minutes - they will dry and sterilise). Make sure the lids are clean and dry as well. Sometimes I use moisture absorbers - I started this last year as an experiment - half of my apple jars had moisture absorbers in them, the other half didn’t, and all fruit kept equally as well.

Overall I love dehydrating - it is quick and simple, and is an excellent way to keep the harvest - retains nutrition, you add no chemicals (unlike many commercial products), and you don’t need electricity to store it.

Oh, wait for it, later today you will be getting some lovely pictures! Suddenly I have an (almost) working kitchen!! Come back in 8 hours or so …..

First, the garden. I have not been neglecting it, but doing the best I can while under the weather. Thank you so much to Damien who came round last week and helped dig out the remaining two beds of potatoes! Damien - you were amazing, thank you.

Dutch Creams in near bed, King Edwards in the far bed. I thought this would be a poor harvest as they’d been left so long, but actually it benefited them, and I’ve grown my largest potatoes ever. Note to self. Leave for an extra month after foliage has died back …

The bean harvest is coming in, too. Picked borlotti beans the other day which have now dried out nicely in the greenhouse (the unexpected bonus of the greenhouse is that it is brilliant for drying the harvest).

And what better place to store the amazing onion harvest but in a spare fireplace! Once I get the kitchen back I will slice many of these and put in the freezer. I have tried drying them in the past but it never seems to work well.

The dehydrator is constantly going drying out tomatoes and zucchini.

Now to the kitchen. Suddenly this past week it has all started to come together and I can finally see how it will eventually look. And it will look good. The final major job is the painting, also the sparky to actually connect up power (lights, power points, stove), then there are a million smaller jobs. But it is over the worst now. In the past week the cabinets were largely finished off (still need glass doors and shelves, door knobs etc and a few things fixed), the sink is in and plumbed, the Falcon cooker is in (!!I am so excited!!) and the gas hob plumbed in but the sparky still has to connect the electrics. Nonetheless I can cook on the hob, glory be. And I can wash up in the sink. Glory be. Tiles are mostly up but edging and finery needs to be finished.

So yeah, there is still one good week’s work, and then dribs and dribbles over the few weeks after that (fire screen, hanging pot rack, minor adjustments), but I am past the worse.

So, to some piccies!