busy fortnight: fruit tree assessment

All the harvest processing, all the canning, all the mess and exhaustion and time taken...

And there's still some yet to go - although the main processing is the early nectarine and early peaches.

Overall in the fruit harvest:

1. Dual Stone (white peach and white nectarine): very heavy crop, lost about a third of it to mould and possums. That's usual. The nectarines are sweet as ever. The peaches are *meh*. Nectarines harvested in the first couple of weeks of Nov. Peaches harvested in last couple of weeks of Nov.

Such a delicious nectarine!

2. Two Stone (golden peach and white nectarine): lost most of the nectarine to mould. Still harvesting the golden peaches. Nectarines harvested in second week of Nov. Golden peaches harvested last week in November through to early Dec.

3. Quad stone in backyard: nectarines were ready in 2nd week Nov, but mostly lost to possums and mould. Apricots in 3rd week Nov - only two harvested. Plums ripening early December and a solid crop, no fruit fly. Donut peaches won't be for a number of months yet.
4. Cherry: 4 cherries, ripened in last weeks of Nov. *sigh*

5. Apricot: 2 apricots, still ripening in late Nov.

6. Dual Plum: about 5-6 plums, mostly on the mariposa side (probably), no sign of fruit fly.

7. Donut peach: not expected to ripen until later in the season.

8. Back avo: a couple of avos, lots of leaves. Trimming it down now.

9. Four apple: a few apples on the left branch, ripening. One or two apples on the right branch, ripening. Tried a few that fell down early - floury. They'll go into an apple-rhubarb crumble.

10. Hedge apples: harvested a couple from the early graft, but rather floury right now. Might not be ready yet? Or fell off because not ready? Otherwise, they're all small and growing.

11. Gala-Braeburn: Braeburn graft still growing pretty well, no sign of fruit fly or codling moth (would have to cut open an apple to find out)

12. Blueberries: doing okay by the fence, but haven't harvested any yet (must go look at them)

13. Mango: has a few fruit, not sure if they'll survive any longer than this

And yesterday I harvested a bunch of carrots - thinned out one of the beds to make space for others. It's a pretty good rainbow from this mix.

Regarding the fruit trees, I'm going to massively trim them down this year. Front and back, both. They're just getting out of hand so far as overproducing fruit is going. Also, I really rather wish that they were spread out across the summer better. My bad for not getting early and late varieties, accidental or no.

nectarine nation

As problems go, over-abundance is a good one to have.
Doesn't mean I much like having this issue!

To the chooken go the spoils:

And the best become preserves thanks to Fowlers' Vacola:

While the rest are dried into fruit bits:

Then I get to do it all over again with the peaches!

*sigh*

I am going to trim all the trees in my yard down quite significantly in the coming year, I think. They've gotten a little bit out of hand in the last couple of seasons. Some of the boughs of the nectarine graft were breaking, and the rain meant a lot of the crop went mouldy, particularly because they weren't being picked every day.

links: a solar food dryer

Under the Choko Tree: Nevin Sweeney makes solar food drier.

A similar link in Mother Earth News

I should like to make one of these for next summer.

spring into summer

It's six of one, half a dozen of the other, really.

When my garden isn't growing, then I feel I have no worthwhile photos to take. When my garden is growing, then I'm too busy in it to post here!

So the 'over-wintering' turned out to be a pretty good thing, because once spring properly came in with a burst of two weeks of rain in early October, everything has been growing and it hasn't stopped.

From this at the end of August:

To this in the middle of October:

To this at the end of November:

There's a LOT of things growing in the backyard right now.

It helps that I've started to work out a system that suits me and the space in the garden, and that I've had all of October and November off work. Chances are that's going to continue into the new year, and it's going to be a little rough with nobody earning a full wage in the house. Still, we'll manage somehow. I think the garden produce is going to matter quite a bit this year.

The biggest change this year has been the fruit harvest. As in BIGGEST.

The nectarines and peaches went beserk.

The two weeks it rained - right as the fruit was growing on the tree - probably helped, as did the chickens spending a fair chunk of the winter digging around their roots and turning over the compost that I made in the orchard bed.

The branches got so heavy and large, that when I adjusted the fruit fly net in mid-October, I had to heavily prune some of the fruit-bearing branches to give the rest a fighting chance.

I picked the last of the peaches yesterday and we are now drying them like there's no tomorrow. They'll go in air tight containers with little moisture-absorbent packets for eating next year (if they don't go mouldy). I'll make at least one jar of jam tomorrow, again for eating next winter.

It's nice to have productive garden - but yes, a lot of effort in processing and dealing with the excess. On the list of things to learn about next year: pressure canning.

harvest: leeks

Roast leeks for dinner, with roast beef, and new potatoes.

Roasted, they were amazing. I ate the leeks straight off, and then ended up having only one piece of beef with a new potato. So leeks are definitely on the 'plant next year' list.

I haven't posted many pics of the garden this spring; it's kind of messy.

But growing! The fruit trees are fruiting, the broccoli and cauliflowers are going to seed. And I have to seed save some of the last ones, because they've survived really well without bug attacks or anything!

Now the big question: pull that bed apart to make 'rows' for the corn, or leave it as a central bed for the time being?

harvest: tricolour carrots and mizuna

So, out of all my carrot sowings, I only really managed one of each, and it took 9 months to grow them!

They're not easy veggies to grow, that's for sure!

Better soil next time, and somewhere to grow that's out of the way. Or else, look for short-term carrots rather than long-term.

Also, home-grown mizuna in salad!

Unfortunately all the other vegies had to be bought. I need to better manage my planting of salad greens in the coming months.

changing seasons

And Bed #1 is being completely replanted.

Pulling out the remainder of Bed #1 reminds me of how far I've come and how much I've yet to learn.

The carrots would have done well if the soil had been decent and uniform beneath the surface. It wasn't. They forked and twisted and made little bulbs with no taper. So, yeah, next time, good friable soil.

The 50 Shades Of Grape Tomato went a little cray-cray and tried to take over the garden. Next time, it gets grown up trellises and across vine things maybe? Like this?

Also, the slow compost of the bed means it's somewhat smaller than it was when I first made it and planted it out with corn...

So taking some of that compost heap that's been burning the grass for the last couple of weeks and building up the bed:

The other beds along the north fence are getting a redo, too:

The bed below (#4 roots -> legumes) was potatoes but has gone to peas and beans.

The bed below("asparagus" legumes/mulch -> fruit) was green mulch, and is settling the 'late fruits' - capsicum, zucchini, pumpkin, eggplant, and some kailan that's doing pretty well (and some that's not doing so well).

We'll see how it goes in the cooling weather.

And a final glimpse of the garden, cleaned up and sorted out:

The garden guys are digging out the red rocks on Thursday, and I have 10 bags of horse manure arriving on Friday. Hopefully it'll come to about 2msq and will be good for burning all that drat onion weed and turning the woodchips into compost. A lot of work, but we'll see about the result.

And then we'll have a garden for the fruit trees. (Hopefully.)

Harvests

Last of the first corn, three cucumbers, the start of the tomatoes:

It'll be interesting to see if the second planting of corn produces anything. There's only four plants and two cobs at this stage, and I'm not sure they got adequately pollinated what with the rain and the pumpkin.

I've planted out a new batch of corn - late autumn corn. They'll probably need a lot of feeding, so I've got the worms eating scraps like crazy, and a new compost heap quietly steaming away.

Still no actual work on the orchard bed.

pests, weeds, and harvests

The worst part about garden maintenance is the question of what to do about pests and weeds. It causes all kinds of issues in my indecisive brain, along with the eternal guilt of "maybe if I ignore it, it'll go away?" And the permaculture principles which is that weeds are plants in the wrong place, and pests are a food source for predators in your garden and therefore to be encouraged.

The biggies this year have been mildew on the zucchini (thankyou, Bunnings) and pumpkin (thanks to the zucchini), slugs on the corn (dealt with via beer), and now pests in the corn silks - including a few worms in the ears.

The mildew is being dealt with thanks to bicarb soda spray - 1 tablespoon bicarb, 2 tablespoons olive oil, mix well, add 2L warm water, shake and spray. I do need to do the whole garden a thorough going-over but with some cutting and trimming and spraying it's being dealt with. Mostly.

I put a whole bunch of mildewed leaves (as well as the zucchini stalks) into the latest compost which seems to be getting pretty hot, although I don't know if it's hot enough to kill the mildew. I had to pull up the zucchini to make space for other plants - they were getting outtahand.

The slugs eating my corn silks I got with beer traps. Most of them. They seem to be somewhat fewer these days - possibly because the caterpillars, bugs, and ants have moved into the corn silks. I tried spraying with vinegar and the corn husks went yellow and dried out. But it seemed to slow down the pest activity. However, recommended was to rub the tops of the corn together to kill the pests in the top which I will be trying with the corn in future. Or maybe a drop of olive oil.

But by far the worst offender - not in the backyard garden, but in the frontyard orchard, is what my mother calls 'onion weed'. The stuff is a noxious weed all over the place, whose 'use' is mostly attracting pollinators. That one's going to be a horror to clear out, because you need to pick out all the little bulbs and there are a lot of little bulbs! *sob*

Finally, my multicitrus graft is not doing so well in its new position - I'm not sure if it's because it's not getting enough nutrients or something else, but I'm going to have to take action soon...

In more positive news, the garden is producing madly: the zucchini are still huge and flowering and producing like crazy.

The gherkin cucumbers are growing so fast I think I"m going to have to do some urgent pickling pretty damn soon.

The pumpkins have been trussed and are being trained up lines and across gardens.

And, pests or no, the corn is ready!

And delicious!

The tomatoes are ripening - I seem to have tiny red grapes, tiny red cherry, and larger ones growing in the front orchard. Some of the seedlings I was growing back in November have finally gotten big enough to be planted out, so hopefully there'll be a harvest from them later!

In the area of neighbourhood foraging I found a lilly pilly overhang in the walk-through on the way to the station. Might nip out and grab a few berries for a try this evening!

And I have a lovely-smelling plant that I think is lemonbalm but which I'm not entirely certain...