2014 Fruit & Spring 2015

Haven't posted here in a while - most of the last few months of summer and autumn were full of changes in the garden, and I just gave up on posting about it until it all settled down a bit. I bought a lot more plants, put in some new beds, and have a bunch sitting around in pots waiting for further planting space.

Thinking about the garden meant I either went straight out and started weeding or digging or wandering around planning, or I was sad because I could do anything.

And then of course, there were the many foot problems, which didn't clear up until winter made it too dark and wet to go outside. And then I sprained an ankle again! So all in all, the last few months have been a bit patchy garden-wise.

But this year, I get to see what survived, what's looking sad, and what might actually start fruiting. I also have four rain barrels set up, to help avoid the nasty drought conditions I ran into last year, and cut down on the amount of water hauling I had to do.


Summary of 2014 Summer/Autumn Fruit:


Stonefruit

Apples

Golden Russet apple in organza
jewelry bag against bugs

I got to eat 3-4 apples last year; from one of the Columnar apples (the Polka), the Blush Babe and the Golden Russet. All were a bit sharp, and ripened very late, probably because I shouldn't have let them fruit (I picked most of them off, but I couldn't resist leaving the odd one... ). I chopped them up and popped them into the microwave for five minutes to get individual apple-sized bowls of stewed apple.


I now have five or six apple trees - two local red delicious type dwarf varieties (Blush Babe and Little Rascal), two columnars tucked in up the end, one semi-dwarf Golden Russet in a pot, and one Early Strawberry (to go in the ground). I bought the first four because they were columnar or convenient (sold locally), then realised they all ripened around the same time and were fairly similar apples, so I had to get a couple more. The Early Strawberry is, well, early, and the Golden Russet is supposed to be a very different flavour of apple (and not much of a fruiter, so it's sort of experimental). I'm not a fan of the sharp granny smith types.



Peaches

Honey Babe Blossom
 from 17th August

Bang on schedule, the Honey Babe burst into blossom a couple of weeks ago, and the Kotare Honey is just starting to follow.

I actually got fruit off these last year! The Kotare Honey peaches were prolific, tiny and sad, the Bonanza ones were few, huge and delicious and the Honey Babe were in the middle. I'll see how they go this year, but if the Kotare Honey doesn't improve, I'll get rid of it. The Honey Babe needed more water.

They all got a bit of leaf curl, but I picked the worst of it off, and then they were fine.


Other

The Cherry and the Almond are still in their first couple of years, so I might see flowers this spring. The Cherry is schedule for a transplant from pot to ground at some point; it dried out far too much last year.

The pears and quinces are holding on, and not doing much. They need time and/ repotting, mostly.

I actually found a dwarf plum! It's just poking out a few buds right now, and I just have to cross my fingers that it will be pollinated, but at least I have one.

I got a couple of feijoas off the Unique, but the Bambini didn't get fertilised at all. I've moved Unique's pot round the back next to the Bambini to try and improve that this year. I did get about five little Red Guavas, which were nice, and this year should be a lot better, as the plant is bushing out nicely.


Berries

White Alpine Strawberries

The Pepino bush and the little Blueberry Muffin have been devoured by slugs, and also not very happy in the winter cold. I'll see if they get their leaves back with spring, and try moving them.

The other blueberries have been sporadically flowering and fruiting since I planted them. Once mostly died, but has new growth from the base, the others just keep popping out random flowers. I didn't pull a lot off because I didn't expect them to keep flowering. I'm tempted to indulge in some rabbiteyes, but I know they'll probably go wild, and I still don't have acidic enough soil. And I just need to give my current plants enough time to settle in before I can judge properly.

The strawberries have been doing okay - some died off, others flourished, and some of the day neutrals actually fruited all winter. The Alpines did amazingly, and I was getting a few berries a day right into winter (then the taste declined, as the period between ripeness and mush shortened to about a day or less. The big plants are still fruiting).

The raspberries got the mould, so they were out.

The blackberry and currants are all still growing into things, so I'll see if they start doing anything this year.

I also splurged on four Haskap plants, as a less-acidic-soil alternative to my blueberries (my soil is a little too neutral for me to get my hopes up over those). I thought they all died off last autumn, which was depressing, but it appeared to be a combination of transplant shock from the heat of later summer (they all came from the far end of the New Zealand, as there aren't any local sellers yet), and the onset of autumn. They all have tiny leaves starting to bud out, showing that a plant can look dead for 5 months and still be okay.

My grapes are both alive too - the one in the ground (Niagara) always looked pretty happy, but the Canadice Seedless Grape in the pot was a bit more delicate and got nasty sunburn (or a fungus) towards the end of summer and all its leaves went brown and dropped off. I left it in the hope that it would magically come back to life, and I just noticed some new leaf buds, so that's wonderful.

The Myrtus ugni were... random. They clearly hate wind and getting too dry, and the various bushes around my garden are all reacting differently. One's died off entirely, others are incredibly healthy (some practically next to the dead one). I noticed a sort of greyish pallor to the leaves in summer, which seems to be a sign that they're too hot or dry. I didn't get many berries, which may just be because they were settling in.

Citrus

These are doing... variously. Most look pretty healthy, but aren't really fruiting yet, and a few are clearly not enjoying winter. I got a handful of delicious tiny mandarins off the one round the back, and three lemons off the Meyer, as well as one absolutely fantastic and very tiny orange. The Lime has taken off and is actually growing now, it's double the size, so I won't be removing any fruit this year. I also have a few new dwarf citrus to round out the harvest seasons, a Buddha's hand because I can (it's covered in buds right now) and a Kumquat Meiwa.

Seedling Update & First Orange

Seedlings sure move fast once they get started!

The beetroot seedlings are looking healthy and growing fast. The top picture is of the remaining cylindrical beetroot seeds, which are basically little dried seed pods.

The transplanted beetroot seedlings are doing fine in their new coconut coir bed.

The Crystal Apple cucumbers are doing well, too. There's a new seedling visible, which seemed to just appear overnight. It's a lovely yellow.

And the original seedling is going strong. You can now see the two leaves inside the seed husk starting to unfold.

The Cherrie Sweetie tomatoes are starting to appear as well. Most are still folded over, like the first picture, but one's leafy and going for it.

Bush basil seeds that I sowed the day before yesterday - they've absorbed water and swollen up, and paled from dark grey. Also, you can see a tiny root sprouting!

I also planted out more seeds at the same time. The Scarlet Runner bean and the Paris Market Carrot just arrived and look pretty amazing. I've hidden the runner beans around the garden, as well as planting them in seed trays.

They've already started sprouting! The runner beans have started to crack open (they're hatching!) and the tiny carrot seeds have little roots.

I also got to harvest the tiny orange from the dwarf Navel orange (I think it's a Best Seedless).

The cat wasn't very impressed.

So I made my own cat, who was wide eyed with citrus-y wonder.

And then I ate it (well, I shared it). It was actually really nice. I left it on the tree for about a week after the last green vanished, and that seems to be about right.

Strawberries. Strawberries Everywhere.

I now have 40-50 strawberry plants in pots, hanging baskets and random containers. The varieties are Chandler, Camarosa and Red Gauntlet (though I've already started to lose track of which is which). They aren't going into the garden, because strawberries tend to take over and I haven't got the space for that. I should get a good couple of years of fruit, and then I can just repot a bunch of runners.

I've also got a handful of random ones that sadly turned up with some sort of scorch fungus disease on. I planted them anyway, away from the others (apparently it travels through splashing water).

WALL OF STRAWBERRIES
This is the northern end of the house which gets
the most sun. So that's where all the strawberries are.

Camarosa Strawberries in cheap planters from
nice TradeMe people
(A really nice lady gave me the wooden one
 along with a raised bed!)

I also started buying alpine strawberries (which are really hard to find! The odd seller on TradeMe and a couple of tiny nurseries around New Zealand). They're much less invasive, fruit all year round, and should do well tucked under the borage and the various bushes and trees, as they're much happier with shade than the bigger version. So far, I only have an unknown variety of yellow ones, but I have a mixed handful of colours on the way (nobody in NZ seems to know what variety they have!). They're also apparently easy to grow from seed, so I should be able to grow plenty more.

From left: The Kotare Honey peach waiting to be planted
Alpine strawberries in a colander container
Broccoli plants in a big pot
Chilean Guava and a spreading manuka spp. that are being grown up to a better size
The raspberry pot (I may need to separate the two varieties for easier pruning)
A grape and a fig (both tiny little stubs right now).

The borage, by the way, is doing fantastically. It's huge and producing ongoing flower stalks and has been a great groundcover between two of the apples (it's sheltering the curled parsley, and I have chamomile growing under it). The comfrey in the useless soil corner isn't growing much, but you're supposed to give them a year before seriously harvesting anyway. I did scavenge a leaf to make DIY rooting hormone for some of the cuttings (which appear to  be rooting - the Myrtus ugni and the Feijoa Bambina have tiny threads poking out the end now).

Bought three dwarf peach trees; Kotare Honey, Honey Babe and Bonanza. They should all fruit at slightly different times, but we'll see. The Bonanza is in the garden next to the apples, and the Honey Babe is in a big pot. I'm still deciding where to put the Kotare Honey.

Yellowing leaves on the orange. It is almost certainly
due to all the rain leaching out nitrogen from the soil or
cold temperatures "locking up" the magnesium.
It should bounce back again now the rains have moved on.
I gave it a heap of grass cuttings under the mulch, and some
blood and bone to help cheer it up.

I'm not sure how well they'll do, as peaches as notoriously disease and pest prone, but the steady breezes around the house should keep them well free of mildew.

My currant collection is now rather respectable: two blacks (Magnus and Sefton, I think), two reds (Gloria de Versailles and Myra Mckee) and an unknown white. I'm planting the blacks in pots (as they spread) and the others along the fenceline out the back, behind the guava and feijoas and in the shady bits.

One of the grapevines (the seedless Candice) has gone in behind the apples and the peach - it should grow up over the edge of the deck, where it can be easily pruned and kept at a manageable size.

I'm also eyeing blueberry and papaya seeds; both should be easy to grow in containers and produce decent amounts of fruit. I want a Southern highbush variety of blueberry, because they're smaller than the rabbiteye and do well in the Auckland region. I'm looking at seeds because it's a lot cheaper than buying actual plants and it means that I don't need to find space right away (I need to stock up on giant pots as it is!).

The peas are starting to go a  bit weird now. They're still producing, but the pods are usually a bit discoloured. The two weeks of rain probably doesn't help - it's also been pretty bad for the citrus. My Meyer lemon and the orange have been looking a bit yellow around the edges due to the constant watering.

On the citrus front, I also picked up a Sublime lime - a container sized variety of key lime that apparently does very well in pots. The Meyer lemon has started flowering properly.

The tiny Sublime lime in one of the makeshift
air pruning pots (i.e. a metal wastepaper bin and
weed matting liner)

The first Meyer lemon buds have opened
(also note the yellow tinge on the
leaves from the rain)

The heritage raspberries that were produced in late autumn withered away and died over the last month, so I pruned away the rest of the stalk. There's plenty of new growth showing around the roots.
The more sensitive deciduous trees, the pears and the cherry, have all dropped all their leaves now. The little almond has dropped most of them. The others are doing fine; a few yellow leaves on the apples, and nothing else. The banana has just unfolded its eighth big, beautiful leaf.

And the broccoli has started to flower! Tiny little broccoli heads are showing on the ones planted out first into the garden and the ones in the white container (I was a bit worried about them as they need a lot of space, but the three survivors are doing really well).

The first broccoli flower. 

Comparison with Cat for size (I never could quite tell how big the
plants were going to get from the internet)

Three big happy broccoli plants in another makeshift container.
One has a flowerbud. There used to be more, but they crowded out the weaker seedlings,
which is fine as I had too many from the start.

I've started a seedling collection indoors, trying to get some tomatoes, melons and cucumbers started. The beetroot and the stevia have actually sprouted, so I'm crossing my fingers for the rest. I also found some neat carrots - Paris Market carrots - which are basically like orange radishes. They're great for containers and bad soil because they just don't need to grow much.

And I've also torn out that darn spider plant that the previous owners left. It has a massive root mass of weird tubers! It's gone into the drowning bin, where all the invasive weeds go. The bin is now full of dark brown, stinking, liquid and half rotted vegetation, and should be pretty awesome fertiliser. I've been trying to dig out or smother the onion weed that has sprouted all around the garden as well. I'm throwing cardboard down and starting the slow process of creating a new bed in the worst patch (currently it's all being held down by pots. I have some plants to go there eventually, like lavender and thyme, but they're all so tiny right now that they'll be overrun by weeds as soon as I turn my back. I'm growing up a few things in pots and then will see what fits there).

More Chilean Guavas, Peas and Dwarf Manukas

The Huia I planted a couple of months ago is
still tiny, but flowering at last.

I've ordered five more chilean guava bushes and a bunch of dwarf manukas (found a nursery selling off all their little cuttings, so i got them all for about $2.50 each instead of $15). I will then have ten Chilean guava bushes!

I currently have four in the garden around the place, and one in a retaining wall/rockery bed.  (The three decently sized ones which will produce maybe half a bowl of fruit this year, the other two - from Bunnings - are tiny). I'll keep most of the new ones in pots. BIG pots.

They're awesome plants; they don't need full sunlight, and grow in pretty much any soil, and have no real diseases or pests. They're like blueberry bushes that you don't have to worry about. They're also self fertile, and after 3-4 years will be producing 1-2 kg of fruit (and escalating with size). I can prune them, plant them out, keep them in pots... you can even topiary them!

Manuka Wiri Kerry, complete with some flowers

I've got three already, two tiny little Huias that just sit in corners being bee attractants (hopefully), and a larger one (Wiri Kerry, I think) with crimson flowers. I've planted that one as a backdrop to the apple/herb/broccoli bed, as it is large enough to be seen, looks rather striking in contrast and should be flowering around the same time as the apples.

And best of all, the fruit is lovely, and can be cooked or eaten raw, and easily given away if I have too much of it. It's super reliable, and the birds apparently ignore the berries until they are overripe. By which point I will have eaten them all anyway.The dwarf manukas are a mix of Huia and Kiwi (slightly different sizes and flowers). I intend to plant them down the edge of the driveway, as they won't get to big, will look really nice, and will be very low maintenance. Manukas are tough plants! Plus, the more natives and flowers around, the better.



The peas are still coming! The Easy Peasy ones are my favourite, because you can eat the whole pod, but the dwarf bush ones were more likely to survive. Some plants are starting to die off now, but there are plenty still coming into flower.

Unripe dwarf peas

Easy Peasy pea pod ready to eat!

The Meyer lemon is covered in buds. Far too many for it to bear, so I'm sure plenty will drop off, but it's nice to see. It seems pretty happy in its makeshift laundry basket lined with weed mat - as is the banana, which now has seven leaves, and the new leaves are three times the size of the ones it had one arrival.

Meyer lemon flower buds

Happy banana tree!

I also have to remember to go hunt for the dwarf beans, as they are always hidden under the leaves.
I should have two peaches and another columnar apple arriving next month. I want to plant one peach, and pot the other (the apple is easy to stick anywhere - fantastic for small gardens, though apparently not the best tasting apples). 

Dwarf bean lurking under the greenery

The Heritage raspberry (autumn bearing) has run out of ripe fruit, but flowered and is producing more. The summer bearing Nootka variety is also putting out new growth around the base.

Heritage raspberry fruit

My broccoli plants are rather fascinating. I had all my seeds come up (which I didn't plan on), and had at least a dozen plants (after giving some away). Broccoli needs a lot of space, so I've semi-accidentally staggered all of mine by staggering the transplants into larger pots (and eventually the ground - any seedlings that went straight in the ground were chomped almost instantly by slugs).

So I now have some very tiny ones that I only just potted (I was growing them in the little peat pots), some twice the size from the week before, and six or seven larger ones in big pots. And then two huge ones in the ground, that used to be the same size as the other large potted plants. Once they hit the limits of their container, they just stop dead. I'm looking forward to being able to harvest broccoli over several weeks now.

 These broccoli are all the same age and were photographed at the same time!

The last seedling in their peat pots (not doing too well - right before I transplanted them)

Seedlings I potted out a week before - twice the size!

Broccoli I planted about a month ago, that has reached its limits

Broccoli that I planted out in the garden (one each side of the tiny dwarf apple tree) a week ago - already significantly bigger than the potted plants.

And I've bought a Hungry Bin (flow through worm farm/composting system). I could have made one myself (for a lot less money), but this one is:

a) compact (and my garden space is small, so that's important)
b) really well designed (easy to use, no vermin can get in, looks nice)
c) easy to 'harvest' soil and worm tea from so that I can just add it to the garden over time (rather than a big 'dig up the whole thing and use it and pick all the worms out' effort).
d) combines composting and worm farming really well, so I get the worm farm benefits for the garden, and the food waste disposal benefits for the house. It's also more efficient than a standard worm farm.
e) supports a local small ecobusiness

The borage plant is huge, flowering profusely, and attracting bees.

Fruit!

Easy Peasy variety all over the quince sapling.

I've planted plenty more things since the first post, and have a lot of photos to do something with at some point.

But I just wanted to note that all my pea plants started flowering (except the ones that are too small) over the last couple of weeks, and peas have been appearing this week.

There's a definite difference between the two varieties:

- the dwarf plants are bushy, have white flowers, more peas in the pod and taste more bitter.
- the climbers are more fragile and rambling, have purple and white flowers, inconsistent numbers of peas and taste much sweeter. They're similar to sugar snap peas.

Dwarf pea flower

I have also been getting a raspberry every day or two off my raspberry plant (I bought two and planted them together in a giant pot, so that they won't take over. One came with tiny green raspberries on it). As it's only a single stalk/branch, I'm quite impressed at how many I've been able to eat. Some of them were rotten, and one had a little worm in, but the others are lovely.

Delicious Heritage raspberries

The Meyer, as well as plenty of dwarf peas.

I have a second lemon, a Meyer, which is now planted in a DIY pot made out of a laundry basket lined with weed mat. I'm hoping for the same 'air pruning' effect. It seems pretty healthy, and has a single lemon on.


The lemon withered and dropped off the Yen Ben, which was good as I probably needed to pull it off anyway. It's in a horrible spot, and all the plants around it (marigolds and peas) are doing badly, but it looks pretty healthy. Lemons are tough, so once it is established, it should do well (it gets a lot of wind and the soil is dry and hard).

I've had to pull about fifteen flowers off the tiny lime bush. It finally got the hint and started growing instead.

Sometime in the last month, most of my first plantings seem to have finally gotten their roots established and started growing; the lime and guava have doubled in size - along with everything else in the garden! Weeds, compost, disturbance and watering are not a good combination. I almost lost some plants completely, but luckily I remembered their approximate location and was able to uncover them.

New growth around the Nootka and the
Heritage raspberries, as well as a
 few peas and a weed.

I have been steadily working on weeding and mulching around everything. It's half done. My chamomile seedlings are all ready to plant, and I planted out half my broccoli seedlings about three or fours weeks ago - which are now five times the size of the unplanted ones. I planted a lot of chamomile seedlings, because I had so many that I ran out of room for them. A lot of them got eaten by something, but it meant I could thin out the rest, so those are all really big now. I bought a few full size chamomile plants, just to get the lawn going a bit, but it's going to need a lot more work.

Oh, yes, fruit update; looking forward to the pea harvest. Noticed a tiny green blackcurrant on the blackcurrant bush, and saw a little green orange on the orange tree in a pot. And I got to eat the feijoa off my feijoa bambina. It was a really good one, with thin skin and a lovely flavour, so I'm looking forward to next year.

Even if only half my trees produce decent fruit, I'm going to be swimming in produce. I think I've managed to plan it out so I get a harvest distributed throughout the year, so it may not be too overwhelming. It's really nice to go outside and find something to eat off a bush.

Hebe "Heebie Jeebies"

I now have three apple trees, and another on its way. All of them are dwarf or columnar varieties, I'm just trying to decide where to plant the second dwarf (it's a teeny little thing in a pot). The best place for it is unfortunately the spot I'm saving for one of my peach trees (arriving in July).

I also bought some small native bushes to go along the exposed fence line with bad soil and too much pine tree. Natives are tough, and I can't plant fruit trees there. In order, I have a dwarf kowhai, a type of rata, a divaricating bush with a latin name (fantastic windbreak, apparently), and a lovely hebe with blue flowers all over it (most of them have pink flowers it seems). I'll look up the actual names for another post. But they should all attract birds, bees and miscellaneous insects, and three out of four have fantastic flowers. I'm also planning on getting some dwarf manukas and planting them around between things.

The weather has turned very rainy, but there is still a lot of sunshine - perfect growing weather, really, and plants are growing like crazy after the dead heat of summer. One mostly dead, dry patch (with weird powdery soil, probably from building waste) has been smothered in plants after I mixed in some decent compost, planted a satsuma and some herbs and actually watered it.

The banana tree is doing well in its makeshift pot, and is just putting out its seventh leaf (seems like one leaf a month). The nasty moth vine is regrowing over the fence, so I'll be cutting that back again, and the catnip has turned into a bush! The Italian parsley by the lime tree is bigger than the lime (I grab handfuls to eat when I go past), and the marigolds have all shown a lovely range of flowers. The tarragon is a bit smothered under the lime and the parsley and the marigolds, but it's still there. One dill plant has vanished, but the other is going strong. Overall, everything is healthy and alive, I just need to weed a lot more around some of the plants.