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.