Planting time!

Spring is here, the weather is warmer, I'm on holiday, it's time to finish the digging and soil prep, and get some plants in.  I've sprouted pumpkins and beans, with capsicum, onion and spinach still on their way, and today updated the herb bed with different varieties of thyme, marjoram and oregano.

At back: Golden variegated Thyme
Right: Pot Marjoram
Front: Common Oreganum 

Tomorrow it'll be seeds of mesclun, cucumber in pots and who knows hat else!  Love very time of year!

Ugly Myrtle's glory time!

The New Zealand Cranberry (myrtus ugni or Chilean guava) is a wonder of productivity at this time of the year and I treated mine to their first pick today. I have two bushes, one in the bird-proof blueberry cage, the other between the apple trees and benefitting from the hammock of netting between them. Having said that, I'm not sure that the birds go for this fruit, but am not about to find out by experimenting!

It's a funny little fruit, you eat the little leafy bit on the end as well, it's sweet and absolutely delicious as a snack or in the breakfast bowl with cereal, or with ice cream! The berries are ready when you can roll them off with your fingers and when they taste so sweet you could happily sit and eat them as you pick!

First pick of the cranberries with the last few blueberries

Gutless grapes

My bunches of grapes have been looking great! Big heavy bunches - all that was missing was a bit of ripening. Trouble is, as soon as there's any colour on a grape they are sucked dry. Prof Google suggested wasps, and indeed a friend also said "wasps". Well I haven't seen any wasps, but apparently that doesn't mean they aren't - well, anywhere! Seems they can even nest in the ground! The same thing happened last year, and I just gave up.

But this year I thought I'd make an effort to achieve some edible grapes. They're a Japanese dessert grape and worth saving!

In an attempt to protect my grapes I netted them but no, still more damage.

A friend's husband who works with grapes suggested wax-eyes, and that I make sure the bottom of the netting is secure. Hmmm, frankly it wasn't, so I went out to tie it to the plants - and out flew three little birds. Wax-eyes. Bugger. Well, probably easier to protect the grapes from birds than wasps, but the grape vines are against a tin fence, and last year when they died back I was quite fascinated to discover a birds' nest, between the tin and the vine, sitting on the horizontal fence supports. What a clever Mama Bird I thought! What a safe place to build a nest!

Well it was also a nest with an on-tap food supply if it was a wax-eye nest! I went looking for it but the vine is too thick in places, so I gave up (again! - this really IS a great place to build a nest!) and decided to concentrate the netting on the half of the vine I have some chance of controlling. Time will tell whether I've been successful! Watch this space!

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!