Apples by the bucket!

I have three Ballerina apple trees, developed to grow upright and produce apples in a small space.  The 'Bolero' variety produces green eating apples and is the first to crop, my 'Polka' and 'Waltz' are reddish and ready for picking now.

 I have just picked a bucketful and there are probably two more bucket loads out there.  Am off to visit the grandchildren in the next couple of weeks, so will take one with me.

The birds had great fun pecking the apples off the trees, so I had to net them, which worked well.  I also planted garlic around them to keep off the moths that lay eggs in apple trees, providing their newly hatched larvae with a plentiful food source.

The apples ripening in the sun

Planting for beneficial insects

There's no doubt that bees bring plant health into a garden - they pollinate, feed off flowers, and a garden without bees does poorly in terms of vegetable production.

Bees favour blue and purple flowers, so I allow my mint and rosemary to flower especially for them. I hope they appreciate this kindness! Certainly the herb garden is abuzz with them at the moment - here they are on mint....

And rosemary...

I also plant tansy, a herb that in times past was rubbed on food or placed in coffins to delay "spoilage", and has been shown to protect potatoes from beetles, and houses from flies. My herb garden is by the back door and I have every spare spot filled with tansy. Am hoping it protects the tomatoes from bugs as well as the kitchen from pesky flies. Does it work? Well I do still get the odd fly and it would take a scientific experiment to determine whether I'd be dealing with more flies without it. Just hope they aren't coming inside to escape it....

Cauliflower and Broccoli

It's a couple of years since I've grown cauliflower or broccoli because they get so savaged by the white cabbage butterfly as it lays its eggs there and they hatch into hungry caterpillars, but this year I read that interplanting with celery deters these pests, so I gave it a go.

Unqualified success!

The broccoli all matured at once, a couple of days before Christmas, so was hastily blanched and frozen. There wasn't ONE caterpillar or other nasty on any of it!

Today I harvested the first row of cauliflower - it wasn't as pretty as the broccoli, there was a bit of interleaving (don't know the correct name, but little leaves growing between the florets), but likewise not one caterpillar.
It's really unusual - when I blanch cauliflower, (2mins) there are usually a few dead caterpillars left floating in the pan!

So now there's celery that can get some fresh air with the brassicas gone, and can grow strong and hearty for winter soups and stews.  I love companion planting!!
Nice to have some vegetables in the freezer ready for winter too!

Garlic bread

Garlic is a great thing to have in the garden! I plant it around the tomatoes to keep the bugs away (pity it doesn't work on birds - they love to peck the red tomatoes!) and copiously around the apples for the same reason - in this case the moth that attacks apples.

When I harvest it - about now - I lay it out on the barbecue table to dry and then string it up in bunches in the shed. I've still got some from last year - it's time it was used, so I'm tossing it into every savoury meal. I love garlic and it's great for heart health.

My herbs are rampant at the moment too, so my loaf of bread this week was this recipe from George Dale's book "Daley Bread"

Garlic Bread

1.25 cups water
.75 teaspoon gluten flour
3teaspoons fresh herbs (I used basil - green and purple - rosemary, thyme, sage)
1 tablespoon oil
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons raw sugar
.75 cup wholemeal flour
2.25 cups high grade flour
3 teaspoons dried yeast for breadmaker machines

This is a 750g (1.5 lb) loaf, 'regular' setting on my machine.

Smells divine! Pity we haven't got a smell option on the Internet!!