Absence and tomatoes.

Gosh, I've been away from this space for quite a while. It seems blogging is always the first thing to drop off my to do list when times get busy.

We have another busy week ahead of us, with a trip away and a wedding- I'm the bridesmaid for my very good friend on Saturday. There a little bit of handmade goodness winging it's way to her, and because I'm sure in between finishing the hem on her dress and making her bouquets she won't have time for checking in with my little corner of the internet, I'll queue up a post or two to show you what I've been working on.

But before that, here's my tomatoes, planted on Labour day. I plan on taking fornightly photos to document their progress this year- I also plan to delateral and feed them fortnightly too, so we'll just see how my plans stick.

I planted 3 varieties- from left to right they are some heirloom Italian version starting with C, Mortgage Lifter and Sweet 100. In the front there is some basil.

Back tomorrow with a colourful project.

Power Gardening 2

I'd like to thank my friend Michelle for lending us her chainsaw and my Father-in-law for wielding it for hours over the weekend.

And really I don't think these images need many words. (You can see where we've come from here and here.)

Thanks Dave!

Oranges

The oranges are here.

The first year we lived in this house I thought we had a dud tree, but I just started eating them too early- it turns out that oranges turn orange long before they are edible. Now I just wait for them to fall off the tree and pick them up off the grass.

This tree is amazing, the oranges are sweet, juicy and have just the right amount of tang at the back of your teeth. It's also nice that it was planted long before we bought the house so it is established (albiet in the middle of the front lawn) and needs no watering in the middle of summer- at least it seems to do just fine without any anyway.

Look at what I picked up this evening!

There's nothing quite like picking up your fruit for lunch as you head out the front door.

Tonight I'm making our yummy kumara and orange salad for tea. I'm also boiling a little brown rice to add and will sprinkle it with sunflower seeds. Yum!

Have you got any favourite orange recipes? Because by the looks of our tree I'll be needing some fresh inspiration before too long.

What's ready to be eaten at your house?

Mt Tomato

If I don't pick the tomatoes early, the birds get them, so I've got a big pile of tomatoes in various stages of ripeness chilling out in my kitchen.

Is it a tomato...is it a pumpkin..... The pumpkins have invaded the tomatoes' personal space!

(Loving my white walls as a backdrop. And a progress report on the bedroom- Martha's is having a sale and we decided to use the same colour on the walls throughout the house- the aformentioned white. Aniwaniwa. I dare you to say it out load and not laugh. Ha!)

Hydrangea

I picked a little posy today for the mantlepiece, I thought I'd share it with you.

I love my little white ceramic milk bottles- I got them from Iko Iko in Wellington. I might have to pick up another small one next time I'm there!

The Garlic is in!

I know a few people around the country who didn't have a good year with garlic. My harvest isn't spectacular, plenty of the bulbs are just little, but there's enough there to see us through the year.

Next year I probably need to water them a little more in November.

I cleaned them up and plaited one bunch, then just tied the other bunch with string. Once they've dried out a little more I'll bring them into the kitchen.

The Sneaky Pea Thief

The other day I left Pedro with a delicious juicy bone, and after about 30 minutes noticed a peculiar noise. I went to investigate, only to find our sneaky vege loving lab nom-noming on the peas!

He'd pulled a whole big part of the vine down, and had worked his way through it, pulling all the pods off the vine and leaving the foliage.

Next year I'll plant the peas in the fenced part of the vege garden!

spot the difference

December 2009

August 2010

'shrooms

At our local Farmer's Market (Clevedon) there is a new produce stand, selling mushrooms. They also sell a mushroom farm, a bucket of mushroom compost which will grow for 6-8 weeks.

We have a bucket growing in our hot water cupboard.

(We have picked and eaten these yummy mushrooms, and are eagerly awaiting the next flush to come through.)

Kumara out / Garlic in

On the weekend, I dug the kumara. The plants had got a little ratty on top, so I thought it was time to get them up, and see what had happened underneath.

It sounds silly, I know, but can you imagine my surprise when I found plump red kumara underneath? It was like finding buried treasure- I'm not sure I really expected there to be anything there!

We didn't get a huge yield, maybe 1 big, 2-3 fist sized and a couple of weeny ones per plant, I only had half a dozen plants, but the bucketful will keep us going for a couple of weeks.

And then I broke up the seed garlic, and planted that (in a different spot, I might add. I planted some mustard seed where the garlic had been.) The garlic was really photogenic!

I also did some much needed weeding, pulled out the beans and built a teepee around some self seeded sweetpeas. It was quite productive, and the blisters on my hands are evidence I haven't done any in a while!

Autumn Wreath

On the weekend I took some grape prunings, and made a few wreaths. I filled them with drying hydrangea flowers.

A brief, vague, how-to. I'm sure there are lots of more detailed instructions out there. Let me know if you have any questions!

I took the fresh prunings and cut all the leaves off. I found the dark, thin wood the most supple, the green wood broke more easily.

Don't worry about getting it too circular at first, that will come as you add more layers. Keep weaving through the prunings, filling up the skinny spots.

Don't worry too much about the sticky out bits at first either, you can clip them when everything is holding in place.

Fill it up with whatever you like- when you get sick of it, pull all the flowers out and start again!

If you make a wreath, I'd love to see it. Enjoy!

Vege Garden Round Up :: March

Well about 6 weeks has passed since I posted the first round up.

My how those seedlings have grown!

I've been employing digital pest control on the brassicas, but you can see where a few caterpillars have got away from me!

The tomatoes really do need to go, but I'm delaying the inevitable as I'd like those last few fruit to ripen.... I plan to buy a few kg this weekend to make sauce, and more relish to see us through the winter. Next year I have grand plans for enough plants to make all my own tomoatoey preserves.

I did a bit of weeding.....just need another bin now! How do you process your compost? I've been thinking of one of those bin systems that has three wooden bins connected together, but for now I'll probably just start a pile somewhere.

I need to decide what to do with these purple sprouting broccoli!! They have been in the ground since mid-september, and seem to be doing not much except blocking the light! They are huge and I hate to think of all the nutrients they have sucked out of the ground, but there's really no sign of edible shoots! Have you grown them before? Would you persevere or cut your losses and plant something else?

On the fruit front, the rhubarb is well and truly done, it is retreating!

I remember I had trouble identifying the roots when we moved in last year- even Mum did, and she's grown rhubarb forever, so it must be a variety that hibernates completely, unlike hers. Does your plant do this, do you know what it's called?

I discovered some flowers on the tamarillo tree, hopefully we get some tangy red fruit.

And I was so pleased when I looked closer at these 'weeds' which are growing everywhere! The changing colour of their papery cases was a dead giveaway for these cape gooseberries!

Nana and Grandad have always had these in their garden, so I hope to keep one of these plants going, in a more suitable location that everywhere!!

I picked up lots of manure from this guy,

who's been living in the paddock behind our house for a wee while now, the pukekos have done a good job of picking through it and breaking up all the lumps, and I put it in where the corn had been, and planted brassicas into it. Hopefully we will be eating them in the middle of winter. I also planted some red onions and leeks. It might be a bit late for them, but we will enjoy them in spring in that case.

We are still getting beans off the vines, and as I was cleaning them up a bit I found some dried up cases I had missed, I shelled them, and wondered if you might like some to put in your seed stores for next spring? I've got 3 sets of 10 beans to giveaway. So if you've made it this far, well done! And leave a comment below if you would like the beans, sorry, but only open for NZ folk.

And I'll leave you with a photo of the onions I harvested mid-Feb, next year I'll plant enough for a whole sting of them, enough for all the tomatoey preserves, and to last though the winter......