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Archive for the ‘Gardening’ Category

I don’t plant much that is ornamental, but I do love these tree lilies (thanks Kinna!). They are beautiful and have a wonderful scent too.

Photo taken with the “retro camera” android app on my mobile

This is my first year growing zucchini, and I have to ask myself why I waited so long. We have 4 plants, one of which lives in a pot and one of which was the runt of the litter. These two are only mildly productive, but it doesn’t matter much since the other two are keeping us well fed.

So far we’ve harvested over 4kg of zukes and they don’t look like they’re slowing down. This monster alone weighed 1.2kg. I had left it to get big so I could have big slices for a moussaka. As it turned out, I only used a third of it for the moussaka! Which was delicious, if I may say so myself.

So, how did we manage to pick 23 kilos of cherries in one day?  Well, here’s the trick.

First, you need a lumberjack.

Lumberjack lurks beneath the cherry tree

Then it’s just a matter of …

Down ...

... she ...

... goes!

Then you send in the pickers.

Lumberjack of all trades

Little picker

It’s a bit of a shame to lose the largest of our cherry trees. But the lowest branches were so high, it was impossible to get any fruit from it, so only the birds were getting any benefit.

To answer Kathleen’s comment:

“and then did you pit them all?!”

we pitted a lot of them, by a variety of methods.  Some were cooked and then mushed through a grid (for jam), some were cooked for wine making, some were pitted by hand and made into pies.   We have thirtysomething jars of jam downstairs, some dried cherries going into our muesli, some fruit leather, some cordial, and some cherry wine that is getting very promising.

How did we pick 23 kilos of cherries? I’ll show you in another post …

This is what I harvested from the vege patch tonight: lettuce, kohlrabi, new zealand spinach, and rocket. It all became a big lovely salad for our dinner.

Later, when the harvesting basket was empty, we went out and filled it with cherries, raspberries, blueberries, black currants, and white currants.

The lavender is flowering …

And so is the rocket.  We’ve been eating a lot of rocket for about the last month, but it is rapidly going to seed at the moment.

There are lots of little pods on the broad beans.  I clipped off the tops of the plants last week, and we ate them.

It’s our first year growing zucchini … the suspense is killing me.

This ruby chard is still quite small, but so beautiful!  Hope it tastes as good as it looks.

This kohlrabi went into our dinner on Saturday night, and it was delicious!

We’re also getting some good harvests of frilly lettuce, and have a heap of parsley plants looking nice & healthy.

And up in the greenhouse the tomatoes are flowering.  We have two types in the greenhouse  (inca and brandywine), and one outdoors (gardener’s delight).

Also down in the vege garden is a huge oregano that’s about to flower, and lots of flourishing beetroots, leeks, celeriac, broccoli, brussels sprouts, cos lettuce, coriander, potatoes, and a nasturtium that wants to take over the world!

We pulled up a few of our garlic bulbs this morning, and they look great! There are plenty more left in the ground, we will eat these ones fresh but the main harvest (in another month, or maybe even a little longer) will be braided and dried.

Our dining table is festooned with baby plants, waiting to be big enough for planting out in the garden.

Our garlic has started to pop up in the garden. We got the first ones mixed up with crocuses – imagine the disappointment when our garlic shoots started flowering! But i have confirmed these ones with a sniff test.