In 2007 the library's magazine featured on its cover an apple box label for Dollar Bird Apples and an article described varieties of apples from Tasmania. I had been in the Tamar Valley during autumn a few years earlier when an orchardist gave me original heritage labels from the time when Australia promoted its apples which were exported to England during their "off season".

For most kitchen gardeners, fruit and vegetables are the essential plants every year in their plots and garden beds. However for all the joy they produce, there are frustrations. This summer-into-autumn season produced jungle-type growth including weeds. My crop of muscatel grapes was the best for years, big bunches shared with friends and birds while my cherry tree, over-mulched, produced masses of foliage but not one cherry on its soaring branches, now pruned.

In Kitchen Garden, December 8, 2020, I mentioned my failure with a Dutch cream potato planted in a pot with too rich mulch. It rotted. I had one which had developed eyes in my study and gave it to a friend with the filleted head of a bream so she could grow fish and chips. That harvest pot has just been dug and the one potato has produced 25 scrumptious spuds (but no fish).

As for tomatoes ... some growers planted theirs out in October and produced good crops by Christmas but without the full flavour of a February tomato. I choose to grow different varieties every year, as an experiment. This season one heirloom Tommy Toe, a seedling purchased from Canberra City Farm, has produced 170 fruit and it is planted in a pot that is rather too small. It soars above my roofline, at least three metres tall.

In our competition to name a mystery seedling tomato that appeared in my garden last year (Kitchen Garden January 2, 2020), the winner was John Morey of Farrer who called it "Bon compo". I gave him some fruit and he saved seeds and returned one seedling to me before Christmas. It, too, is three metres tall but has developed "fasciation". This causes thickening of some stems and one truss outside my office window has 28 small fruit, unlikely to ripen before first frost.

On September 1, to celebrate the anticipated March arrival of Van Gogh's Sunflowers in Canberra, we gave away five packets of Sunflower Van Gogh's Landscape seeds from Diggers. Since January, readers have been sending me photos of their blooms plus photos of potted sunflowers from Woolworths in Mona Vale NSW to Coles in Manuka,

With the Summer 2020-21 Art on View magazine, the National Gallery of Australia included a packet of sunflower seeds from Sow 'n Sow for all members. Seed sown in January bloomed last week. The days were wet and grey so the vibrant sunflowers echoed Van Gogh's luminous painting at the gallery. For opening week, the gallery had a magnificent massed display of sunflowers in the foyer.

Walking in the Sculpture Garden in January, two mothers and four boys pointed to sunflower plantings along a service road at the Gallery. The lads discarded scooters and bikes to show me blue banded bees supping from the blooms, some of which were setting seed. Sunflower seeds are said to provide a high protein feed for chickens, increasing their weight, egg production and quality.

With Margaret Fulton the Musical opening in Queanbeyan this week, The Margaret Fulton Cookbook (1969) a wedding present from my great aunt Mat, was opened at the poultry chapter.

Handwritten notes show that I made French roast chicken, chicken paprika and chicken marengo in 1970 but best of all was the author's gem scones which I baked for 30 years from 1977 in a gem iron which had belonged to Auntie Mat. Fulton places them under Country Cooking from farmhouse kitchens. Just the thing for Easter. Do any readers own a gem iron? email: bodenparsons@bigpond.com

2 tbsp butter

2 tbsp sugar

1 egg

pinch salt

1/2 cup milk

1 cup SR Flour

Heat gem irons in a hot oven (200C). Mix butter and sugar to a cream, add egg, pinch of salt and milk and combine with creamed mixture. Lightly fold in sifted flour until mixed. Have irons very hot and grease well. Spoon mixture three-quarters full into gem irons. Bake in hot oven for 10-15 minutes. Serve warm with fresh butter.