The Garden Share Collective ~ May

We're well into Autumn now, but it doesn't feel like it. We're still having lots of lovely weather with a little rain mixed in. Perfect.

And something rather odd is happening in the veggie garden! My asparagus, which has a season from around October to December has, all of a sudden, started popping up now! We're getting new spears by the day. it's ace, we're feasting on fresh asparagus dipped into poached eggs. Yum. It'll be interesting to see if the crop is as good again in September, or if this strange happening will affect it. But for now, we're just making the most of it.

There are also dwarf butterbeans coming up. I didn't plant them! They self seeded from the summer crop. They were actually a huge disappointment to me - I thought that they were, what we know as, butter beans in the Uk, just a dwarf version!  But no - they're what I think if as string beans. Meh. But Lloyd likes them.

Our bananas are ready - Lloyd took this hand off a few days ago, so that it could ripen on the outside table. I'll maybe make a banana cake this afternoon. As I've said before, I'm not a huge fan of bananas, but I can just about handle them in a cake.

I did!! Here's a Hummingbird Cake. It was absolutely gigantic - and lovely!

 I planted some sweetpeas, broad beans and parsnips.
The sweet peas and the beans have popped up and are doing great.

Sadly, Kopi, our wee ginger cat, loves the veggie garden. It's her domain. However when it's cleared 

(like it is now) she seems to think it's her Loo! And her favourite place to dig is where I planted the parsnips. They appear to 'be no more'. I think she may have flung them out! That's why there is a bamboo cane lengthways in the beans photo. They were going the same way, so I put canes down to stop her digging. Wish I'd thought of it sooner. 

Here she is coming to say 'hi' after some veggie garden trashing.

 I'm still babyminding all the monarch caterpillars. I have so many this year that they have almost completely denuded all my swan plants.  I've been decanting some over to my friend! But I've had huge success, lots and lots of butterflies have hatched.

Here's three stages ~ the caterpillar forms a J when it's ready to go into a chrysalis. Then the chrysalis forms, and over the course of days it turns from black to transparent and the butterfly hatches. In the final photo you can see the red of the wings showing through. When they hatch they pump up their wings and sit for a good while before they fly off. During this time if you put your hand down the butterfly will happily crawl onto it and stay there for ages, testing its wings. It's amazing.

In the Greenhouse, the tomatoes are still producing and so are the chillies. Lloyd picked a huge amount of chillies this morning.

These will be turned into chilli sauce ( with the other 8-10 kg that are in the freezer!) He's going to book time in a commercial kitchen in Kerikeri to do this as we've heard on the grapevine that a new market is starting in KK. So he can perhaps sell it there.

Elsewhere around the garden we have all sorts going on. The strawberry guavas are ready. We have these to attract native birds and my  chickens love them, but I know that some people make jam. 

The roses are still blooming.

And self seeded ~ rogue ~ tomatoes that popped up around the place are actually producing fruit! This plant is beside the spa near the palms! The birds were eating my tomatoes this year, which was a bit of a pain, but we're benefitting now because they must have pooed seeds out all over the place!

And hedge update - as you can see, it's coming along nicely. It's a bit of a faff as I need to prune it little and very often while it's getting to the size we want it - but it's looking ok.

And last but not least....autumn colours. 

The Garden Share Collective is the brain child of Lizzie from Strayed from the Table. There are a group of bloggers from all over the place who chat about what is going on in their gardens, with hints and tips. Pop over and check out all the others. 

The Garden Share Collective - March

  The Garden Share Collective is the brain child of Lizzie from Strayed from the Table. There are a group of bloggers from all over the place who chat about what is going on in their gardens, with hints and tips. Pop over and check out all the others.

My greenhouse is still going great. I've got tomatoes going nicely, one of the tomatoes I planted last May is still giving me tomatoes! I've planted more from seed and already they are shooting up.
The chillies are so amazingly abundant.
And there's more basil on the go - so all in all it's all rather lovely in there!

Under control - clean and tidy.

Teeny tiny basil

This is a 'great white'

The veggie garden, on the other hand, is diabolical!
The tomatoes have all gone brown and blerk! The lettuces have all gone to seed, the beans were always rubbish! But the pumpkins and squash are doing well. They look rubbish, but the plants always die back about now. The actual pumpkins are really big this year! In fact the butternut squash are the biggest I have ever seen! so whoo hoo!

The pumpkin vine has spread over the fence and is now trying to grow up one of the avocado trees!

This however, even though it looks like a big green slug, is my favourite thing ever! It's a luffah! And I have been trying to grow one of these for yonks. The vine has a few on it, but this is the biggest by far. I so hope it's able to dry out and then I can clean it up and make luffahs!! So exciting!

 My morning harvest.

The globe artichokes have gone to flower - well some of them have. This was totally on purpose as I absolutely love the colour they go - stunning.

And the first flowers have appeared on the jerusalem artichokes. If anyone is thinking of growing these, may I suggest you do it in a very large pot? They spread like crazy and once you've got them you will NEVER get rid of them!

And in other areas around the garden ~ the bananas are still going great guns. These aren't ready yet, but in another few weeks we'll take them off the palm to ripen.

There are elderberries all over the place. Usually I just feed them to the chickens! But this year I may try to make something out of some. Also I have a friend who is keen on some.

 Apples! Everywhere! 

And cicadas everywhere too! I know the noise they make drives some people a wee bit mad, but I adore them! They seem incredibly noisy and incredibly tame this year!

So that's it!

My mum is arriving tomorrow, from Scotland, for 3 weeks. I can't wait! It means that the garden will go a bit by the wayside. Probably not much seed planting will be done, or weeding. The grass will be mowed though. So most likely this month will just be as little maintenance I can get away with!!

The Garden Share Collective - November

  The Garden Share Collective is the brain child of Lizzie from Strayed from the Table. There are a group of bloggers from all over the place who chat about what is going on in their gardens, with hints and tips. Pop over to Strayed from the Table to check out all the others.

So, what's been going on since last month? Well quite a lot!

Operation Picket Fence has been completed.  Which was fabulous!
The new hedge is also in now. We've been watering it every day, since we seem to be having absolutely no rain at all right now. That's pretty unusual for this time of year.


So here it is! Our teeny, tiny hedge. It's fast growing though and as long as I trim it properly it'll thicken up.  It'll be interesting to see how much it grows each month.

 In the Greenhouse

The overall look - it probably looks less full that it did last month, because a lot of the seed trays are out and the seedlings have been planted in the veggie garden.
But, you can probably see how much the chillies have grown.

I found these as tiny self seeded chillies under the habanero. I assume they'll be habaneros from seeds that will have been left behind from one of the chillies last year. I rescued a few of them and bunged them in pots. The biggest one has doubled in size in a week!

Finally some success on the cucumber front. Every year I say it's going to be my last of growing cucumbers. They never do well in my garde, however here I go again!

This is a wee yellow cherry I planted from seed a few weeks ago. It's growing like a weed

 Some basil, planted from seed since last month. It grows so quickly in here. Last year I think I may have had the biggest basil leaves in the world!

And! yes! Ripe tomatoes.We've been eating tomatoes from the greenhouse regularly for the last 2 weeks. I'm amazed! I did wonder if they would have a good taste to them, since they've been growing over winter, but they are the sweetest, tomatoey tomatoes ever!
These are the Oregon Spring - which I got specifically to grow over winter.

This, however, is a moneymaker. I took a lateral off one of last seasons plants, just before I dug them out. It's in a pot and has grown steadily all winter. It was only a couple of weeks behind the ones that are supposed to do well in colder temperatures, and the tomatoes are much bigger. It's covered in large red tomatoes, which is somewhat of a surprise to me! And they taste amazing.

This year, I'm experimenting with growing my aubergines in the greenhouse. I always feel that the season isn't quite long enough for them in the garden. usually they would still be months away from having any flowers on them. I'm really hopeful this experiment will be a good one.

And the chillies! Wow. All of last years chilli plants were cut down a few weeks ago. but already they are growing tall and strong. All of the different varieties have flowers on them already.

This is a sudra

And finally! A luffah germinated. I planted about 10 seeds. This is my only plant. Which is a little disappointing. But last time I grew a luffah I only had one and it spread for miles!

Have I mentioned how much I love my greenhouse!!

The Veggie Garden

Things are beginning to take shape. The seedlings from the Greenhouse are doing well. The seeds I planted straight into the ground - not so good! There is still no sign of any rocket, lettuces, or the sweetcorn from seed.

The bean bed is doing well! Dwarf butter beans in the middle, and snake beans on the bamboo.  There are also a few beetroots in front of one of the bean pyramids. I don't like beetroot at all, I think it tastes like mud. But Lloyd likes them. I planted the pretty ones that are stripey.

Close up of the lovely butter beans.

Cavallo Nero - again for Lloyd - or the chickens!

A wee mesculin mix - got a few of these

A little, out of focus, courgette.

And!! OUTSIDE tomatoes! Just shows what having a greenhouse to start them in does. Usually I wouldnt have tomatoes  until December. (I checked and last your our first one was 17th December)

Still looking very empty, though.

We've still got some peas, globe artichokes, lots of asparagus and potatoes being eaten now.
I've planted a lot of sweetcorn. Some directly into the soil in seed form, and some that I have bought as seedlings from one of the lovely garden centres in town. So there's a real variety. Lloyd and I prefer the sweet ones.
And the courgette that was in the greenhouse is now in the veggie garden. Already we've had one courgette. 

Other stuff around the place. 

The poppies are beginning to come out. And they're so pretty.

I've also got a lot of daisies. Pink ones and white ones. It's unfortunate that the white ones smell like sweaty socks!

My wee sewing shed, The Pip is in the apple orchard. It's looking very pretty in there right now, with a mixture of leaves and blossom. 

 More blossom - the avocado orchard is awash with blossom this year. You just have to stand close by and all you can hear is the buzzing of hundreds of bees, working away.

The first roses are blooming. I was a bit lax last year and didn't prune them at the end of the season. Also in my rose bed were some dwarf frangipanis (since removed!) they had completely taken over and were smothering the roses. Some of them were not happy campers. Now that have lots of space and light. 

This is the pompom tree ( or snowball tree!) I can't remember what it's really called.  We only planted this a couple of years ago and it was a twig. I think it's at its best this time of year- when it's covered in white pompoms!

It still looks nice, even when it's a little past it and the blossom are all over the ground.

 We've also been getting on with all the rather boring, everyday tasks that crop up when you live in an old wooden house.  There's been some painting of new wood, which replaced some rotting wood in the wall of the house.

And some repair work to the front steps. Any day we were going to put a foot right through them!!

So, everything is looking rather lovely. I do love this time of year. Best thing about the garden is how amazing it smells!

Oh, and another job that I dont like - machette-ing the bananas. It's hard work for a 5ft2 wimp like myself. Lloyd usually does it, but he's been pretty busy at work....so call in the helpxers. We have 2 more German boys. They are super fit and seem to thrive on hard physical work. So this morning I handed them a couple of machetes and let them get on with it!

They seem very happy!

 Things to do for next month
Keeping on top of the weeds in the veggie garden, this is peak growing time.

Mowing lawns. Our neighbour is very ill so Lloyd and I have been doing their lawns and our own. It's nice to be able to help them. That's about 8 hours of mowing to do both! TBH I'm rather grateful that it hasn't rained for a while! it's slowed the grass down.

Probably planting more sweetcorn

watering the new hedge!

and just all the usual stuff.

We do have one exciting thing, though! Alpaca shearing! It's a big, hard job, so when it's all done everyone involved will be sitting down to home made pizzas. Better fire up the pizza oven!