By Denise Fernie
According to the Noongar six season calendar, we are in Bunuru (February – March), which is traditionally thought of as the second summer, the season of adolescence.
This is the hottest time of the year, with little to no rain, except for maybe a summer thunderstorm. The hot easterlies continue, overnight and in the mornings, followed by the cool seabreeze most days, if you’re close enough to the coast to feel them.
Bunuru is the time of the white flowers, with lots of white flowering gums in full bloom, including Jarrah, Marri and Ghost Gums.
Read morehere: http://www.bom.gov.au/iwk/calendars/nyoongar.shtml
Summertime abundance is well and truly here. Tomatoes, pumpkins, beans, eggplants, and my favourite, zucchini, are all in season now. Our rainbow chard took a bit of a beating from the hot summer sun, but we have Malabar spinach (also known as Ceylon spinach or climbing spinach) that handles the heat of the sun much better. It is not a true spinach, but has very similar flavour, and we use it in much the same way as you would english spinach.
Fruits in season now include figs, plums and melons.
It is this time of year that we get together for “Sauce Day”. A couple of families all get together to combine their tomatoes, and make passata. Not being from an Italian background, we have scoured the internet and cooking books to find our information, and now it has become a tradition for us. Everybody helps, kids as well. Cut up tomatoes, put them through the sauce machine, simmer it down to something thick and lovely, then bottle with a leaf of basil, and preserve by boiling the bottled sauce. A long but lovely day.
One of my favourite recipes: