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Now we know why Lady Apple Pie was served to the Australian PM.

In 1973, renowned WA horticulturalist John Cripps crossed the Golden Delicious and Lady Williams apples to create a new apple, Cripps Pink. Now marketed around the world as the Pink Lady, this delicious local invention is Australia’s most popular apple. Known for their attractive pink colouring, fizzy mouth feel, sweetness and crunch, Pink Lady apples have a high sugar content which also makes them perfect for cooking. Try them out in this impressive home baked Pink Lady Apple Pie.

Pink Lady Apple Pie / Serves 8

Ingredients Shortcrust Pastry 2 cups plain flour 1/3 cup icing sugar 145g butter, cubed 2-3 tablespoons iced water

Apple filling 8 peeled, cored and thinly sliced Pink Lady Apples 3/4 cup brown sugar 1 tsp Cinnamon Juice of half a lemon 2 tbsp cornflour 1/2 tsp salt

Crust topping 1 egg, beaten 2 tbsp granulated sugar

Method Add the flour, sugar and cubes of butter to your food processor and pulse until the mixture has a breadcrumb consistency. With the processor on, slowly add iced water until the dough comes together in a smooth ball. Lightly knead then wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes. Preheat oven to 190C.

Remove pastry from fridge and roll out between two sheets of baking paper to 3mm thickness. Cut pastry base to size to line a greased 25cm pie dish and roll the remaining pastry into a ball and wrap. Place pastry into pie dish and prick all over with a fork. Line with foil and weigh down with pie weights or dried beans. Cook for 15 minutes then. Remove from oven, take out the weights and foil lining and allow to cool.

Mix all filling ingredients in a large bowl. Place filling inside the pie base and roll out the remaining pastry to cover (you may have to brush the edges of the pie base with water to help it stick). Crimp edges together. Cut vents in the top crust to let steam escape. Brush lid of pie with beaten egg and sprinkle with sugar. Chill in freezer 15 min for flaky pastry. Bake golden 190C (375 F) 45 minutes. Cool for at least an hour before serving.

Serve warm or cool with vanilla ice cream or triple pour cream.

Already planning for next year. My wife brought me back some seeds from England so I took 2 of each variety, put them on a wet paper towel, put the towel inside of a ziploc bag and set it in a warm place. All 6 sprouted so I put them into recycled yogurt cups under a 16/8 cycle LED grow light. You can get an idea of the order they sprouted by the size of the seedlings. I will take them outside for the winter when we come back from Bruges in October. They can stay outside 24/7 but I will bring them in at night in case a rainstorm pops up. We get torrential rains in the winter that would pound them right into the dirt at that size. From left to right are Armageddon, Khan Starr Lemon Starburst and Hallow's Eve, all Chili Peppers.

I was expecting harvest season to start in 2-3 weeks, because of our late spring. So it was a bit of a surprise to find 3 ripe pumpkins, 2 seed-ripe cucumbers, and 3 buckets of very damaged corn yesterday.

The beefy beans look like the first flush will be ready in just a few more days. I have no idea where my watermelons went, and I didn’t see any ripe squash on my other plants, although by the time I got that far I was barely able to move, so I didn’t look all that closely. I did manage to get corn pollination bags on some of the corn that wasn’t ripe yet. I’m hoping that will protect them at least a little bit.

I need to cut down on the critter population on my land. Between the deer and the raccoons, its a wonder I got any corn at all.

Yellow squash still going strong, but that’s about it.

The apples are plentiful; and the peach tree is loaded beyond reason. However, I have my doubts about the peaches, as some are already going from green, straight to brown. Might get some elderberries, if the birds let them ripen.

Dug the last of the carrots & beets today; will get the potatoes (few as they are), the onions, and garlic next weekend.

So glad to have the garden tractor back up & running. The replacement engine is doing its job just fine. Learned a lot from the project that I hope I never have to apply. LOL

And the scrap heap groweth. The worn out Troy that I can’t get transmission parts for, minus the Kohler engine, which I used to replace the blown up Tecumseh that came on the new Troy; said Tecumseh; the blown 2004 Kohler out of the garden tractor; the clutchless, beat up 65 VW; the stove-in galvanized water tank; the worn out 30 gallon DeVilbiss air compressor; several small, worn out irritation pumps; 2 water heaters that don’t; a washer that doesn’t; and an old Servel refrigerator that can’t; lots of other odds & ends. If the garden grew as well, we’d have bumper crops all around.

Next weekend, a Realtor is coming out to discuss listing our 1/4 section to the east of the one we’re living on. If we get a decent price for it, I can give up my day job, and have the time to get the garden back in shape, the way it used to be.