Welcome to Life Images by Jill

Welcome to Life Images by Jill.........Stepping into the light and bringing together the images and stories of our world. I am a photographer, writer and multi-media artist.
Focussing mainly on Western Australia and Australia, I am seeking to preserve images and memories of the beautiful world in which we live and the people in it.

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Monday 11 February 2013

The fruits of summer

I love the fruit this time of year, especially the beautiful stone fruits that we can buy locally grown in our area - peaches, nectarines, plums. The plums with the dark red flesh are my favourite. I used to always buy satsuma plums, but now they are hard to find, so I buy a "rosa" plum variety. Evidently the red flesh varieties are very high in anti-oxidants. 

According to the Department of Agriculture and Food "The south-west region has a temperate Mediterranean climate, suitable soils and availability of good quality, irrigation water which favours the production of high quality, flavoured and well coloured stone fruit". So how lucky are we!
Mixed in with that we also have strawberries, blueberries, grapes, cherries, rhubarb, bananas, apples.... No wonder I love the fruits of summer!


hmm...where are the strawberries! We haven't grown strawberries for years. At one time we used to go out to a strawberry garden just out of Bunbury where you could "pick your own" (tastings allowed). We used to pick a few kilo, eat them fresh and make strawberry jam - so delicious straight from the vine.


We only have a small back garden, but we have an apricot, lemon, and orange trees and two grape vines. And during summer a few tomato plants. Below you can see our trees. On the RHS of the top picture you can see the net "structure" made from irrigation pipe that we put up over our apricot tree so that the birds don't take all our fruit. The apricots are usually finished by mid-January, so then we take the net off and put it over our grape vine (LHS). It is the only way we can keep the birds away, but still they manage to find little holes to come through.


So from apricot flowers to fruit - 


How about a beautiful apricot dessert -

This one has Tiramisu  mixture on the top - 


or a delicious apricot and almond dessert slice with cream. I made this with home bottled apricots, you can see them in the background.
Recipe compliments of Tartlette - go here for the link - Apricot & almond tart


Or how about a simple fresh summer fruit bowl with yoghurt or for breakfast with musli? I don't know why I don't have a breakfast like this every day this time of year!



And of course you can't forget the jam making


So there you have it. The fruits of summer. Do you have fruit trees growing in your back yard?
Next week I will come back and tell you about the grape jam making - it is a tradition in our family.

Until then...... I'm having breakfast on my patio with the travel section of the newspaper while I dream about our next holiday.  Have a wonderful week. I look forward to hearing from you. 


I am linking up with Mary and the other wonderful contributors at Mosaic Monday at Little Red House and Our World Tuesday. Please click here on the links to see their contributions...... 

You might also like - please click on the links -



33 comments:

  1. Wow! Your photography is very professional and certainly presents all the foods so deliciously ~ makes me hungry!

    Carol of: A Creative Harbor

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  2. I savoured every moment of this post Jill and your photographs are mesmeric. I understand the time and the planning it takes to style the photos, then have the correct photos to go with a blog post - and how you manage to bake, garden and blog such wonderful accounts is amazing! Keep up the great work, I for one love what you're doing :)

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  3. You had me longing for fruit, warm from the sunny orchard. I think we'll have to put net over our cherry tree this year. We got no more than a handful of cherries last year! The birds feasted.

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  4. Love your photos, you should be a commercial Photographer.

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    1. thank you so much all. I really appreciate your encouragement.
      Horst, this in fact is my dream. I am going to be starting a Photography course soon, and I hope after that I will feel a bit more confident about going out and approaching restaurants etc to photograph their food for blogs and cookbooks. My dream.

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  5. Wow, all the fresh fruits and desserts look delicious. Your photos are outstanding! Well done! Thanks for sharing, Jill! Have a happy day and week ahead.

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  6. wonderful mosaics! love the peaches from blossom to fruit :)

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  7. Oh Jill, this is so not fair;') Oh my goodness, you make things looks so inviting and then add in all of the goodness of these fruits... I adore apricots and pluams, more than others, and all of your dishes look absolutely delisch! We grow absolutely nothing...we have so many deer and squirrel and raccoons, they eat it all! I have tried, but it will never happen. Happy week~

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  8. How wonderful to see summer! Here in the Midwest of Illinois it's winter and I am longing for some fresh fruits and veggies!

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  9. Hi Jill, just having a quick catch up of your recent posts, what lovely produce from your garden. Thankyou so much for your kind words on my photography blog which are much appreciated.

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  10. Oooh, you're making my mouth water for all those luscious summer fruits. We currently have a plum tree in our yard, along with blueberry bushes and strawberry plants. But this year we are adding 2 apple trees, a cherry tree, and an apricot tree. I can hardly wait for the fruit, although I know it will be a couple of years. Your photos are lovely.

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  11. Lovely summer fruits and fresh and tree ripened are best of course! One fruit you don't mention and haven't photographed are mangoes! They are ripe around here (SE Qld.)right now and I bought a tray full on the side of the road a week or so ago for $12. There was a sign advertising a tray for $10 but the ones I bought were quite a bit larger - well worth an extra $2 - and absolutely delicious!

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    1. mangoes! of course! we do get them down here, shipped from the north or Queensland, but it is something I have only bought a few times recently. Thanks for reminding me. I have a great recipe that has mangoes and prawns....yum.

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  12. Great shots!
    I feel hungry now.

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  13. What a beautiful blog you have! I can almost touch the images in your pictures. I especially love the apricots on the blue tray.

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  14. Your photos are beautiful. Thanks for your comment on my blog.
    Sydney - City and Suburbs

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  15. I am looking forward to the fruits of summer but for now, I content myself with the citrus of winter.

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  16. How utterly divine!

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  17. Absolutely stunning photos - you've made me yearn for summer! Everything looks so delicious and so beautifully arranged. A beautiful blog post.

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  18. A wonderful collage of summer fruits ... love this post.
    Thank you for dropping by my blog Jill.

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  19. Hi there - one of the (many) things I love about Australia is that you probably bought the fruit in a supermarket or local store! WHen I lived in the UK, you only saw fruit like this in pictures! (although the blackberries were good!)

    Tasmania is a remarkabel place. But I also want to explore WA - so many places!

    Cheers - Stewart M - Melbourne

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  20. Such mouthwatering pictures.

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  21. Such a great selection...I can't wait for the summer time. Love how these images make me think of picnics and dinner in the garden

    Mollyxxx

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  22. Your photos of the fruits are marvelous and the food likes delicious. Great !

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  23. Those fruits are so beautifully shot - I love the apricot tiramisu and that breakfast tart with them. Colours matched are perfect - blue with warm orange. Edible right off the webpage! We're nowhere near summer here in Malta, so it makes me dream of those warmer days to come. I have been meaning to make apricot jam for a few years, so will be inspired now via your photos. Let me know where you're learing Lightroom online as I need to gen up on that one too! I must search Lynda.com and see if they've a course. All your work is very pro Jill, so I have no doubt you'll have openings in food-photo editorials soon!

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    1. Thanks so much Liz. Your food photography is so amazing, I am really honoured from your comments. Here is the link to the Lightroom e-course. Kim is a great teacher. A new course is starting in March.
      http://www.kimklassencafe.com/round-trip/

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  24. Your pictures have made me hungry for fruit! Beautiful!

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  25. Oh my Jill these are just marvelous shots and a wonderful presentation! Wow..amazing!

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  26. I have started to replace vegetables with fruit in the main course and it is working out well. These pictured here look delicious. Boom & Gary of the Vermilon River, Canada.

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  27. Beautiful mosaics jill!
    Love the summer fruit too. I'm mad with myself as I've just realised I haven't made strawberry jam this year - now I'm too late grr!!!
    I'm just a cross the ditch in Auckland so it's nice to see another Summer post!
    Shane ♥

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  28. absolutely beautiful and delicious pictures!

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