Planting the Spring Garden, and hoping for some surprises...

It's been a couple of years since I've filled all the back garden with plants and seeds.  I've put in a few things, but health issues have limited my energy.

However, I'm back in form!  And after arriving home from my wonderful holiday to find it all completely overgrown, I've taken a deep breath, dug it over, and planted beans, silver beet, spinach, lettuce, broccoli, tomato, courgette, cauliflower, capsicum and basil plants.  And sown radish, cauliflower, celery, carrot, pea, bean, pumpkin and parsnip seeds. 

My seeds were bought in a flurry of enthusiasm several years ago, which means they are - well - several years out of date.  (Umm, best before January 2011?!)  But they are Kings' Seeds, and I'm getting a surprisingly good germination rate!  My goal was actually to use them up this year, and quite a few empty packets have met the weeds in the bin, but now I'm wondering if I'm going to have plenty of veg to give away!  Hope so!

There is one row that makes me laugh - have just sown it.


Random seeds!

At the bottom of my plastic seed box was a medley of seeds - who would know which packet they were from?! - and the choice was either to toss them out, or sow them!  So they are in a nice row, and I wait to see if they sprout, if they grow, and what they are!  They should be all herbs and/or veg, but there could be the odd flower in there!

Cherry Guava Jam - Experiment #1

I'd rather eat my fruit raw, but the cherry guava (also known as strawberry guava) is a patchy beast.  Some of the fruit is luscious and some similar-looking is not so.  For its size, it is blessed with an abundance of tough pips which can make eating a bit chewy.

So today I experimented with this fruit, and discovered that they are happy to be frozen until there are enough of them,  or I've got time, to do something with them.  There are quite a few recipes around for making a clear jelly with them, but phah, too much phaffing around for me at the moment.

So here's my first jam recipe.  Quantities are small, I imagine the principle is the same however many berries you've got, and multiplying quantities will produce a similar result, although I'd be a bit cautious with the chilli powder.  (As I was testing it for setness, I thought it was a bit bland, so zhooshed it up with a pinch of chilli powder.  Was a good thought!)

CHERRY GUAVA JAM (#1)
450g cherry guava
3/4 cup water
1/2 cup sugar
1 tablespoon lemon juice
Pinch chilli powder

Top and tail guava, cut roughly.  This amount of fruit yielded 2 cups of pan-ready fruit.
Add water and bring to boil.  Boil about 20 minutes, partially covered, then use a stick blender to smash up the fruit.
The seeds are impervious to the blender, so I used a sieve to transfer the pulp from one pot to another, minus the seeds.  Press the pulp through with the back of a spoon.  Discard seeds.
Add the sugar and lemon juice and boil rapidly uncovered for about 20 minutes or until setting point is reached.  During this time, taste, and add chilli powder if you want to.
Pour into heated jars.  This small test batch made almost two small jars.

Welcome, Cherry Guava!

And here I was, thinking that the fruit production on my little bit of paradise was over until the Mandarines coloured up in a month or two, and that it was probably time to take the pruning saw to the base of the cherry guava.  I planted it in my blueberry cage a couple of years ago, and although it sprouted branches in all directions, and the occasional green bulbous-looking fruit, it seemed to do nothing but get in the way of my blueberry and cranberry picking in a most unproductive manner.  This was its final year - in Biblical fashion* I had given it one more year to produce fruit, when a wander in that direction today surprised me with red fruit on this strange plant!  Reaching nearer the bush and bumping the wire, I was even more surprised that the nearest red bulb dropped off!

Ripe fruit!  

And I'm missing it!

In no time at all, I had a bowl, and was inside the cage, and I look to have a huge crop!

I had seriously given up on this bush, but it was waiting its time.

And it's yummy!  Wahoo!  Fresh fruit for breakfast straight off the back lawn again!

(Reading up on it, I find that I wasn't misguided in planting it in the blueberry cage, as apparently birds love the fruit, so it has gained an indefinite stay of execution!)

*Luke 13:6-9

English Standard Version (ESV)

The Parable of the Barren Fig Tree

6 And he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came seeking fruit on it and found none.7 And he said to the vinedresser, ‘Look, for three years now I have come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and I find none. Cut it down. Why should it use up the ground?’ 8 And he answered him, ‘Sir, let it alone this year also, until I dig around it and put on manure. 9 Then if it should bear fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.’”

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness...

...wrote John Keats in his poem to Autumn in 1819.

We are in autumn here in New Zealand and after some health issues, I have only weeds in the vegetable garden.  I am looking forward to this growing season and spring, by which time I'll have cleared the dreadful seed-bearing mess, and be ready to plant vegetables again.

And then from the depths of my memory I thought - carrots!  Didn't I put in some carrot seeds months ago?

I went fossicking, and yes indeed I had!

Can you find the carrots amongst the weeds?  Hint - that's the green things!

And I have carrots!

I love this about gardening for food!  You get these amazing gifts!  Not all the crops I plan and nurture provide me with food, but it's these unexpected bonuses that brighten the tasks.

I hadn't netted the grapes this year, and knowing the fight I fight against those tiny grape-sucking birds even when I do, I hadn't bothered to even check.  But today I did, and there, thick in the untrimmed foliage, hanging low were - beautiful huge ripe grapes!

The feijoas fruit - and very sensibly drop their ripe crop at my feet when it's ready - whether I do anything to them or not, and the Cape Gooseberries have been very prolific this year.

I am abundantly blessed!

Cape Gooseberries

An erratic cropper, these plants self seed in different parts of the garden each year and I always hold my breath that the fruit will ripen before the cold weather stops the process!  This year the crop has been a beauty!

They die right off in winter and come up anywhere next spring!

I originally planted several seedlings bought from a church fair, and they have never re grown in the same place.  On the presumption that God knows where they best thrive, I just allow them to flop all over the tomatoes, pumpkins, beans or wherever they appear each year!

This year I've experimented with freezing the golden fruit - isn't it amazing?! - and they certainly have coped with a couple of weeks in the freezer.  I think the resulting golden globes will be fine defrosted naturally in the breakfast muesli in the winter!

They look like little Chinese lanterns hanging from the bushes and are sweet with just a little tang, if you know what I mean!

Feijoa time!

I only notice it's feijoa season when I see them on the lawn - as the feijoas ripen, they just fall off!
This year I'm going to try freezing the pulp, just scooped out with a spoon and sealed in a container, as they'll be great in muffins and other cookery later in the year.  I'll also see if the defrosted pulp is suitable to pop into muesli for breakfast!
They're delicious, with their own unique flavour!

I've got two trees, apparently necessary for pollination, but strangely only one produces fruit.  As they are fairly prolific, that's not a worry!

They produce lovely spiky red blossom, and are grown commercially in New Zealand.  For more detail check out this feijoa website.

Plums!

About 3-4 years ago I planted a Japanese plum tree, and it has slowly been growing and producing a few plums each year.  I have to net it to keep the birds away from the fruit, and there is the added risk of winds blowing the blossom off right at the crucial time, so that the crop is very light.

It's necessary to net it in such a way that the birds can't reach the fruit through the netting, or by pushing the netting towards the plums and reaching with their beaks.  Very clever are our birds!  Using a technique handed to me by grape growers, I use bird netting clipped together by the plastic bread bag clips.  Works really well!

It's a lovely shaped tree and I love having it in the garden, fruit or not.

This year it produced abundantly for its size, and although the birds did get a share, and although the netting was swirled out of place by gale force winds, I have just picked these plums which I am delighted with!

Thank you, plum tree!

Summer time and the berries are ripening

Blueberries!  First pick was on New Year's Day, (but only a spoonful if I am to be honest!)

Now I'm picking every second day - about five bushes, some older and some young keen fruiters - and this was today's  harvest: