Peach Flowers and Spring Growth

I planted out a lot of my seedlings and the results have been mixed; either the slugs ate them instantly, or they took off. I'm waiting to see how many survive...

But in the meantime, spring is officially here! I've been noticing new growth all around the garden, a couple of weeks before I noticed the weather warming up myself. There's been quite a bit of change in the garden over the last few weeks, and I may address more of them in a future update (I certainly got plenty of photographs!).

About a month ago, at the start of August, the bees discovered the Borage. I've since seen on other plants, but at the end of winter it was the only plant they went near.

I saw three different species within five minutes; a large bumblebee, the smaller honeybee and an intermediate bumble of some kind (Which I managed to take a photo of).





So far we have:

New leaves on the feijoa

New growth on the feijoa sellowiana out the front. It's an unnamed variety, which probably means it was a seedling rather than a graft (it was a birthday present).

It hadn't moved a bit since I planted it, which I think means that it was establishing its roots during autumn, then it went dormant for the winter. The other young trees that I planted around the same time mostly managed to start growing just before winter arrived.

My alpine strawberries and Yakon root arrived from Koanga Gardens. They will look very healthy, and it will be nice to see what happens with them. I'm hoping that the Yakon might become a good potato substitute, as I don't get on very well with potato. Either way, it's apparently easy to grow and I can stick in some horrible ground in the corner of the garden.

The alpine strawberries (three of each kind, red and white), all look very healthy and I've left them sitting in a container of water to perk up before I decide where to plant them. Some of them have flowers already. Interestingly the flowers seem to be a lot smaller than the ones I have on other plants.

This was the original Colander strawberry.As you can see,
it's doing very well and has a nice handful of fruit on it.

Nearly ready to eat I hope!

Most of my of alpine strawberries are doing really well, both in the ground and in pots. The big ones in the colanders are doing fantastically well and seem to have doubled in size. They all have at least a dozen flowers or fruit on. I tucked a few little plants in around the garden as well, and it will be nice to see how they do.

I had one small plant that I kept inside for awhile, and I managed to eat a couple of strawberries off it as they ripened over the winter.

It was one of the yellow/white strawberries, and I can confirm the pineapple taste. They were actually quite sharp - I'm going to try leaving others to ripen a bit longer once I have the patience! Although I'm pretty sensitive to sharp tastes, so I'm sure somebody else wouldn't even have noticed. From what I remember of the original fruit that were on the plants that arrived first, I think I prefer the red ones.

I've since moved it outside, because my room was so dry that I was having to constantly water it. The other plants all started flowering over the last few weeks, so I'm looking forward having more than one strawberry at a time!

Flowers and the delicate spiderweb on my Bonanza Peach

My peach trees also arrived about two months ago. They are all dwarf varieties as usual, one Bonanza, one Kotare Honey, and one Honey Babe.

The Bonanza went straight into the ground, at the end of the Apple row. It looked pretty dead when it arrived, but it started to put out flower buds about a month ago. The other two went into pots, with chamomile and alpine strawberries around the base. The poor Honey Babe, which was covered in leaves when it arrived, had all stripped off in a big storm.

I figured that the alpine strawberries might make good ground cover around the base and it would keep them contained, while also providing something similar to their normal woodland environment. The little plant poking out of the mulch on the right is actually a pea plant, growing out of the pea straw.

The Bonanza Peachtree starting to show flower buds at the beginning of August.

The Bonanza is the smallest one by far, and it's also the first to flower. It's currently covered in pink blossoms, where as the Kotare Honey has just put out its first. The Honey Babe hasn't flowered at all yet. I know that the Bonanza is supposed to be one of the earliest, but I'm not sure whether it's because it's also in a more sheltered spot.

The Bonanza a couple weeks later. The lovely flowers has been joined by the first few leaves.

It is notable that all the peach trees are flowering before they put leaves out.

The Kotare Honey starting to flower.

The Bonanza flowers after the petals dropped.

I also now own a Whitecurrant, and an additional redcurrant and blackcurrant. The blackcurrants are both in pots because they tend to spread. The redcurrants and whitecurrant started leafing out with new growth for spring.


I also ordered some blueberries, which were being sold off in the South Island where they didn't really belong (they Southern Highbush; as they're from the northern hemisphere, Southern means warmer). The varieties I got were O'Neil and Petite Blue (which I think is also known as Summer Blue).

Flowers on my Petite Blue Blueberry in the pot.

 I've planted one of each in a big pot each, and the other pair will go in the ground next to each other where they can pollinate each other. This way I should be covered against issues with soil pH in either location, as well as being able to fit more bushes in!

It was interesting to see the "two zones colder" effect of putting something in pots, as the potted bushes leaves promptly turned reddish from the cold, while the ones still sitting in a bucket of water stayed bright and green.

We've also eaten pretty much all the broccoli there was a moment, although we've got some more coming along. I have been planting out some of the potted plants, as they hit the limits of their containers and stopped growing again.

Seedlings Sprouting

My winter seedlings have started sprouting from my windowsill so I wanted to capture the very first to show up.

Stevia in a peat pot. This is quite expensive - I only got five seeds in a pack, compared to 50 or so for tomatoes. It also only lives a couple of years or so, so I'll have to try cuttings and things. If it works, it'll be a fun, useful pot plant, and would make a nice gift if I have spares.

Beetroot - the fastest to come up by far. The seeds were little clusters with multiple seeds, but I've only had two pairs and one single seedling. I haven't planted all the seeds yet, as there were only five (they were a free sample from a seed company, Gardenstuff).

Turns out that you can very gently pull the extra beetroot seedlings out (just don't hold it by the leaves!). There's an awful lot of root in there! I replanted them in another tray, just in case.

Crystal Apple cucumber! I actually thought that I hadn't put the seed in properly at first, before I realised that the plant was pushing it out.

You can't really see the seedling with the naked eye, but a really good close up photo with the flash on shows it really clearly.

Alpine Strawberry Arrivals

My second delivery of alpine strawberries arrived. This time it was a mixture of varieties from The Fragrant Garden.

They were a mixture of healthy and yellowing, some with fruit, and some without. None were named (of course), but were apparently yellow and red creeping and clumping types. And one 'cream' colour (that was just listed as yellow on the label, so who knows what it will be?).

A red alpine strawberry. WITH ACTUAL STRAWBERRIES.

Why yes, it is possible that I did eat the berries
 right after. Why do you ask?

It was very windy and rainy today (we had a strong easterly which is quite unusual - it blew my borage entirely the wrong way and the main stalk is now damaged. There's now an impressive patch of bare earth standing testimony to its mulching abilities). So I only planted out a couple of the strawberries, the rest are waiting in their pots.

 One went in with the Honey Babe peach, another went round the bag under the annoying shady tree that nothing much grows under, and a third joined the previous ones in the apple tree bed (the one with the fruit - one berry fell off as I planted it, so I ate it. And then I ate the other one. Despite the white on the berry they were definitely ripe and absolutely delicious).

Yellow Alpine in Colander

By far the happiest of the plants were the three yellow alpines I bought via TradeMe. They were big, happy, healthy plants and two have gone into the garden, with the third in a nice, big colander. This one also has a flower! 

The flower seems to be bigger than the remains on the smaller ones that arrived today. I'm not sure if this is due to the variety, the size of the plant, or the fact that it's difficult to compare them at different stages in the flower fruit cycle. I guess I'll be finding out!

One lovely strawberry flower...

So sometimes TradeMe gardeners are actually better than nurseries. They cost slightly more, but they were worth it.

But what do they taste like?

Fantastic. I'm trying to find non-cliche adjectives, but 'sweet', 'intense' and 'flavourful' keep springing back up into my descriptions like weeds.

They are like concentrated strawberries. The berry is gone in an instant, but the strength of the taste left behind seems like you just ate an entire larger strawberry. They're slightly sharp and sweet and perfect.

Delicious strawberries...

The yellow and white varieties are supposed to be mellower, or pineapple flavoured, but that may just be the colour affecting people's perceptions (nobody seems entirely certain on the difference). I look forward to blind taste tests. You know, FOR SCIENCE.

Yep. I am extremely pleased with my decision to go alpine-strawberry-mad. I am now going to start collecting them and seeing how many I can raise from seed. This will be difficult, as it involves not eating all the berries.

I don't want to divide them, as apparently the berries get bigger when the plants are bigger. Also, it's apparently easiest to grow them from seed if you just plant the entire berry (as there are multiple seeds, and obviously it's the best environment for them).

Buying the Strawberries

I have seen references in articles to being able to find them in the herb section of garden centres, but most of those articles are three or four years old. I certainly haven't seen any anywhere - though I don't exactly tour garden centres across the country. It's certainly something I'll be looking out for, though.

But so far, my options have been hunting down plants for sale online.

I've only found a couple of other sites that sell them (other than TradeMe), and they are small, difficult to contact businesses (one is a single person, the other has a defunct website and no response to my email). And Subtropica.co.nz, which has white strawberries, but only ships during summer. I wouldn't be surprised if these gardens mostly sell via TradeMe (or in person. But that doesn't help me much as they're often in Palmerston North or even further!).

They're also a lot more expensive than normal strawberries, around five times the price per plant. This is a pretty logical result of their rarity and the relative difficulty of propagating them (runners are much rarer and less vigorous. Seeds are an option, but slow. Most plants are created by dividing clumps after two or three years, which isn't particularly quick!).

Varieties are almost always described just as 'red', 'yellow' or 'white. There may be some confusion between the last two, as some of the product descriptions claim that the yellow variety turns white when ripe. It's possible that they are all "Yellow Wonder" and "White Pineapple" but I have found no authoritative source on that, or a way to tell them apart before you buy anything. They hybridise a lot once they're in the garden though, so they could be anything by now.

With luck, there will also be mention of whether it is clumping or runnering (although that's also dependent on the conditions - alpines can be induced to runner occasionally).




Sources:

Subtropica - Northland, white, ships in summer, $3 per plant

TradeMe.co.nz - variable range and prices. I've got some of my best and some of my worst plants here, but it's a good place to pick up really cheap plants, or unusual ones that are out of stock elsewhere. Or just to diversify your plant stock a bit.

The Fragrant Garden - Palmerston North, five unnamed varieties (yellow/red/creeping/non-runnering), $5.20

Koanga Heritage Gardens - Hawke's Bay, White Pineapple (an actual named variety!, runnering) and unnamed red (nonrunnering). Order by August to be shipped in spring. $12 (unclear whether seeds or plants, and how many of each). Update: I received my strawberries in the first week of September; three small, healthy plants of each type, so $4 each.

Nikau Hill - Palmerston North, problems with website and no response to email when I tried to order, but had yellow and red for $9.90 Update: New website online in Sept, '14

Heavenly Herbs - Wellington, private grower. Red. Contact by email for availability and payment, $5
Haven't tried.

More about alpine strawberries:
Strawberry Store: Alpine Strawberries (US based. Good for information, but can't be shipped into NZ)

Worm Farm is Working

A quick update to confirm that my worms are alive and starting to chow down on a full bucketfull every couple of weeks.

I bought the worm farm just over a month ago, and added the worms maybe three weeks ago. It's mostly full of compost, with a layer of food scraps and then a thick layer of newspaper.

The Hungry Bin
(read about this worm farm here)

I run the odd half bucket of water through it every few days, to flush out the leachate and dissolve some of the good worm castings. This then drains into the tray underneath, which is filled with coconut coir. The coir then expands, turns into magical potting soil without me having to wait and mix it up when I'm actually planting, and hopefully absorbs a few extra awesome nutrients.

The first bucket or so of food I put in, I just sort of hoped it would work. I was definitely overfeeding, even though I was trying to give them time to settle in. I tried to avoid poking around, but checked in occasionally under the newspaper.

The general insect life moved in pretty fast, but I didn't see any worms initially. They had a huge pile of new soil to get used to and plenty of breeding to do, as well as needing to wait until the scraps were decomposed, but I was still a bit worried as I knew there were some food scraps buried in the bin (which can be very bad for the worms when they rot).

But last week I had a look, and there were a couple of worms up on the surface enjoying the rotting veges.

The Ghost of the Melon

So I added a half melon rind, as I'd heard that worms enjoyed those. And did they ever. I found a handful of worms hanging out under it a couple of days later, and all the flesh scraped off.

This week, there's only the wax coating left, like a plasticky ghost.


So along with the melon, I added a bucketful of scraps, mashed up with a trowel (the scraps were about a week old, and I've been adding a fair bit of water along with teabags and coffee, so it was all soft and starting to rot already).

I added a second melon rind yesterday

There's already a worm under it (and some of the flesh is gone, and it's full of bugs).

The whitish plastic looking thing at the bottom is the wax from the previous rind. It's just starting to decompose now (it's edible, so it's safe for the garden). The big white thing next to it is just a badly photographed egg carton.

The Radius Garden ergonomic weeder

I know that you can run it all through a processor and things, but I'm a fan of efficiency (plus, my flatmates might revolt). Leaving it to "pre-rot" in a bucket and then chopping with my Radius Garden Ergonomic Hand Trowel seems to work almost as well.

Incidentally, a bit of fangushing over that hand trowel, and its companion weeder. I have carpal tunnel issues, and it is the best design I have ever used. The weeder works fantastically as well for pretty much any weed (including dandelion roots) and the trowel is just a decent all purpose garden tool. The handle design is just perfect and lets you apply very effective, efficient leverage without straining your hand or wrist. They're my two main tools, and I use them constantly. And the curved handle means that I can hang them off a shelf!

Anyway, back to the chopped scraps... 

This seems to have been very popular and has disappeared fast enough that it all looks the same in the bin now (I was adding food to different sections, so that I could see what was being eaten and so the worms could avoid food that they didn't like).

Citrus and onion went in as well, though when we ended up with nearly a bucketful of mandarin peel, I decided to play it safe and added that to the "real" compost bin. I know worms technically don't like acidic food, but from what I've read, it's entirely dependent on how much you give (like any well balanced diet or proper composting mix!). They've certainly gotten rid of the citrus peel so far (though some of the onion skins are still visible).

I also add cardboard and paper, though that's mostly being used to mulch weeds right now!

Hanging out in the mashed up food from a week ago
Banana skins, mandarin peel and pea pods are still visible.

The very first batch of (unmashed) food from three weeks ago. Looks almost the same as
the more recent stuff. Also note a happy compost worm and lots of tiny white wormlike bugs.

So all in all, the worm bin is working well. I can't count the worm population, obviously, but they're still alive. It seems to have a pretty healthy ecosystem, and there are no problems with bugs or smell escaping. I can't harvest any castings for a while, but I'm happy using run off for now, and it should be able to easily handle our small but steady flow of scraps.

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).

Chilean Guavas and Dwarf Manukas

My dwarf manukas and Chilean guava cuttings arrived. All the Huia cuttings had lovely flowers all over them.


I potted all the Chilean guavas into larger pots (which they can grow into, and then I'll repot them into REALLY BIG POTS). The manuka plants are (mostly) going down the side of the drive, which is not really a great spot to grow things (the soil is both clay, pebble and pumice! Very weird). It's full of weeds, but I weeded and planted six of the manuka plants and mulched with bark, so I now have one tiny neat section.

 I'll probably need about 50 plants if I wanted to do the whole length the same way... I'll have to think about it. All of them being the same would be boring (though I am mixing species; still, they basically look the same, they just flower at different times and will grow to slightly different tiny sizes). I'm avoiding putting anything delicate or edible down there, because it's not a great spot (though gets lots of sun), it's a bit too far for easy watering (manukas are super tough and can be ignored forever once they start growing), and because there's a highish chance of random car/people damage.

I'm also going to be planting strawberries this week - lots of them.

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.