The Garden Share Collective - September

  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.

Sorry I missed everyone last month, I was over in Scotland visiting family and friends for 4 weeks. I loved it, but I did miss the garden.


I'm going to refer back to the last post - HERE and update on that.
It's still winter and hasn't been that cold, but oh boy! it's been wet. We have well draining volcanic soil here, but even that has turned all boggy. It's saturated, and not at all fun.

The Greenhouse
The most exciting thing I want to start with is that I actually have tomatoes in the greenhouse!! Green ones, but the experiment for winter tomatoes is sort of working. What I've learned from this is that I definitely need to plant them way earlier next year if I want to have tomatoes to eat over winter! I'm thinking they need to go in around May (?) so it will be an experiment again next year, but I hope I get the timing a little better.

The chillies have all been harvested, and cut right back. Again, as this is the first full year with a greenhouse, we just hope they all come back again and don't die. I have high hopes, though as until last week there were still red chillies on them.

I am looking for a bit of advice. I've noticed that some of the chilli plants have some black pesty things on them. What do people use in the small space of a greenhouse as pest control?


The Veggie garden
So, the fabby compost that I was given - not so fabby. It obviously didn't get hot enough to kill the seeds in it, so now, where I put the compost is slowly but steadily turning into lawn. I need to get weeding pretty much immediately, as it's getting warmer now and soon it will go crazy. I'm really disappointed. I've worked so hard getting my veggie beds in good condition, the last thing I need is a gazillion weeds.

'A Heartbreaking work of Staggering Genius'

The peapods are about 8ft tall and have pods on them. Another couple of weeks and I'll be noshing them. However, these were really planted to save a lot of the peas for planting. Often it's difficult to find Alderman peas to buy. So I do it this way.

The globe artichokes have done amazingly well.  They are gigantic. Still no sign of any artichokes yet, though.

The rest of the beds are still sitting pretty much empty - as was my plan.

But!!!! the first of the asparagus is poking through. This bed is only three years old and I have been nurturing it like it was a baby. Look how big and strong these look. I have a feeling it might be a bumper year!

And, got mint!

But,  there's not a huge amount happening in there right now, however soon it will be a hive of activity.

Quite a lot of marigolds. I always have marigolds in the veggie garden. They're a very good way of keeping aphids at bay. A great example of companion planting

The rest of the garden...
We did have half the grassy part of the garden fenced off. It's working amazingly.  It's given us another 2 acres of grazing for the alpacas which is ACE!  It's put that part to much better use. Before I used to have to mow it. Now the mowing takes almost 1 hr10 minutes less time to do and uses a lot less petrol. whew!

 And an added bonus, we can see Rachel and all the Alpacas from the french doors in the kitchen. Bliss.  You can see it's still very much winter. No leaves on the trees yet.

We planted a few trees. A Weeping willow in the nursery paddock for some shade. It'll take a couple of years to get big enough. Also 2 wedding cake trees, in the garden. These are really beautiful when fully grown. (But don't look like much now!)

The daffodils have been and (almost) gone.

The citrus orchard has been a goldmine of fruit this year. It always is. There's going to be some lemon curd made this week.

We have some lovely huge hands of bananas almost ready to be picked off the trees and taken to our deck to ripen.  They don't ripen on the tree. If you look closely, to the left of this hand, and slightly lower, is a brown blob? This is a hand of bananas that we left on the tree a wee bit too long and rats ate it. They've been a terrible problem this year. Despite us having three cats.

And speaking of cats.. this is Kopi. And this is pretty much all she does!

And my lovely chickens? Laying up a storm. We always get eggs all winter (I've got just over 20 chickens) we get around 4 or 5 eggs a day right through winter. Over the last month it's upped to 14 a day. Brilliant, especially considering 6 of my chickens are 7 years old! Time to get my 'eggs for sale' sign back out. 

Plans for the next month
The next month is where I have to work really hard making wee paper pots, and getting my seeds planted so that they are ready to go out into the veggie garden later. This is my first time of having the greenhouse to get them all ready in - so it would be fair to say I'm really excited about it this year!

I'll be planting
Sweetcorn, lots of it and various ones
Tomatoes - heirlooms - a real mix.
Aubergines/Eggplants
Courgette
Luffah ( if I can find any seeds - no luck yet)
lettuces
rocket
peas
cavalo nero/black kale
spring onions
various beans
silverbeet/rainbow chard
beetroot ( for Lloyd)



I've found over the years, that this is what we eat. often I've grown other bits and bobs, but this is all our favourite things. BUT! If anyone feels like we're missing out on something fab, I'd love to hear from you.

There is also a very full herb garden.

So, that's my main to do job. But there will also be all the jobs that need doing ALL THE TIME. Mowing, weeding, trimming, pruning.
My main weeding job is the 2 beds round the house - the front one is gorgeous with camellias and gardenias and some hibiscus, but it also has Oxalis ( this really should have a skull and crossbones after it! evil stuff!) it is the bane of my life, along with convolvulus which we also have in a corner of the garden. 2 things I loathe!  Also got 3 dwarf frangipanes to take out. They're not dwarf and they never flower. They're just taking over the beds in a mass of green bushiness.

And the mowing - nightmare, as our mower broke down last week when I was just about to start mowing. We haven't got it back yet and the grass is now the longest it's ever been. This makes me anxious. I'm a bit of a neat freak and I hate it like this, so here's hoping the mower is fixed soon, or I may have to go and sook up to our lovely neighbours and borrow theirs.

Still, the bees are out in force and this makes me smile

I shall leave everyone with this thought - I noticed we've all being talking a lot about seeds. I have a bazillion seeds. I'm putting it out there, but what do folk think about a seed swap? Obviously we'd have to be careful to follow our countries rules on this. I know NZ is a big NO NO for sending seeds to but we could do it within our own countries??

Roland's Wood

We kept hearing good things about this place. Roland's wood is an area of land that was donated to Kerikeri, years ago, by a lovely man, who was a dog lover. When he passed away he left it as a place where people could walk their dogs, freely. Anyone can go there!

The Rotary Club took it on and have done wonderful things with it. There's been a lot of planting and path making and maintenance.

Up until recently we've always taken our dogs to the beach. They adore the beach, but with Bob Dog having arthritis now it's not the best place for him. He forgets he has a sore hip and gets so excited, running into the water, doing sort of dolphin leaps! He always ends up coming home limping and suffers for a few days.

We thought we'd give Rolands Wood a go. And oh how I wish we'd gone yonks ago! It is an amazing place, and the dogs adored it.  It looks particularly lovely just now, as all the magnolias are flowering. In a few more weeks the bluebells will be out.

This is sort of the area of the wood  - it doesn't go back as far as the photo though!!

Shall we go this way?

Or this way?  Brodie and Lulah were on a mission to explore every inch of the woods!

Brodie is one very happy boy.

 Lulah smelling the daffodils as she runs by.

She's pretty well camouflaged in all the leaves. 

Swimming! She is SUCH a waterbaby.

Bob belted around the place having a total ball. Hard to believe he'll be 10 in a couple of weeks.

Poor Lloyd was on Poo Bag duty!

See, stunning!

Super delighted dogs.

There's an amazing amount of flowers out just now

Tired but happy, doodles. Except Lulah, who looks very sad to be leaving.

My favourite pic of the day - Bob in the magnolias.

We've been home for a week...

and it's just flown!
When we've been away for a while I always feel that it takes a few days to "claim the house back!" So, I've been doing a lot of hoovering - Bob is shedding even more crazily than usual - a bit of baking, a lot of gardening ( when it's not raining) and mammoth loads of washing!
I did manage to fit in a couple of lovely winter dives with Dan though. Winter dives can really be gorgeous ( if colder!)

It was one of those stunning mornings, that start off incredibly misty, then as the sun warms up the mist burns off and you're left with amazing blue skies.  You can see the last of the mist just burning off in the valley. 

Once we got out in the bay it was almost even more lovely. The water was actually calm, flat and almost glassy. While we were zooming out to the dive site I thought, probably for the millionth time, how lucky we are to live in such an amazing place.

At the end of the day I came home with a lovely, big cray fish. Definitely not the best pic of me, I was tired and had been diving all day, but I'm well happy!!  Roll on next dive.

 So I celebrated with a cup of Earl Grey. One of my lovely friends in Scotland, Stephanie. She knows how much I love old china, so she gave me this trio set and Lloyd one too. We've been using them every day, they're just so beautiful, and I'm sure tea tastes nicer out of a china teacup!

Off on my holidays!

Lloyd and I are heading off on holiday on Saturday, we'll be back in a little over three weeks. I'm going to be in Scotland the whole time and Lloyd will be over the border and up with me!
It's my mum and dad's Golden Wedding anniversary and Lloyd hasn't been back for almost 7 years!! So it'll be lovely to see everyone.
I'm super excited!!
Just working my way through many, many lists to get everything organised before we leave the farm in the capable hands of a trusty house-sitter.

See you all when we get back!

We'll be going here - which is Balmedie beach - cos Lloyd proposed to me there.

This photo belongs to Royally Morphed Pythons

More Pottery

I'm still going to pottery and finally I've got to the stage that even though the things I make on the wheel are still a bit squinty, they are now thinner and you don't need muscles like Popeye to lift them.

I've been sticking to the pale colours and I'm having a bit of a dot fest!

The good thing is we really are using them all and I'm still loving it.

Here's some small unglazed stuff. The front three were made on the wheel and were just me having a mess around. One of them got mashed round the rim when I picked it up and another is totally squint - I could say I meant it to be like that, but that would be a big fat lie!! The back one is a hand made pinch pot to go with my rustic dotty ones that I made a while ago.

These are some dotty, finished bowls. They're actually quite big and I admit to absolutely loving them and being somewhat delighted that they look nice.

And the rustic dotty ones that I use all the time, so I'm going to make a set.  I just glazed the small one and I've got a couple of larger ones waiting to be fired.

 

Newly glazed pinch pot and what it should come out like once it's been fired again!!

And here's the squinty one. I painted wee blue flowers on it. It might be cute once its fired!

It's raining buckets today ( after a few absolutely stunning days where we've done loads outside) so I'm having an inside day. Glazing some plates and making macarons. We'll have to see how these come out as I haven't made any for eons! I've turned the kitchen table into some sort of odd work station!

The Garden Share Collective - July

 The garden Share Collective is the brain child of Lizzie from Strayed from the Table.
As this is my first post I thought I should introduce myself for any folk checking in for the first time.
(oldies can skip all this bumf!)

I'm Laura, originally from Scotland but emigrated to the far North of New Zealand around 8 years ago. It's a sub-tropical climate.
Lovely hubby and I bought a small farm with a huge garden. I'd never had a garden before, in fact I'd go so far as to say, I had no interest in gardening and farming and knew absolutely nothing at all about either of them. Now, I can't imagine life without them in some form or another.

So, if you want to know more here's a couple of links that'll tell you all about the garden which is about 6 acres and all about the farm - around 16 acres. The farm has changed a bit since I originally wrote that, and we no longer keep steers. But we have expanded our alpaca numbers somewhat drastically!

This aerial photograph shows a little bit of the garden. Green roof - house in middle. To right is veggie garden (you can clearly see the raised beds.) Just down from veggie garden is the avocado orchard - they were very small here. In front of that is the potato bed - you can see the lines of potatoes. The citrus orchard is directly behind the house, and hidden behind the bare winter branches of the big trees is the apple and stone fruit orchard. White roof is the woolshed.

Anyway, that's probably enough to be going on with, so now I'll tell you all about what's happening in the garden this month, and I apologise for the length of this!

Oh also, the veggie garden is totally organic...

Vegetables

 The actual veggie garden is about 10m x 10m. I also have a large potato bed that's about 15m x  2m

 I'm not a big winter veggie growing person! So in fact the veggie garden is mostly sleeping just now.
In the last week I've composted most of the beds and put them to sleep under some hay.   I make my own compost in the usual garden compost bins, but I am also lucky enough that a friend keeps 4 horses here and he collects all the horse poo and makes it into the most amazing compost. He's very generous with this and I get to use it on my veggie beds.

The asparagus bed had all the ferns cut down last week and is now well fed and snuggled up until spring.

...and here's some of that magnificent compost. It's amazing stuff and has about a gazillion worms in it.

It's not all waste land in there, though, as there are potatoes coming up. This is a Maori potato called PeruPeru. They're smallish knobbly potatoes with the most amazing creamy texture and out of this world taste. We grow a lot of these. And our other favourite is the good old Agria. I can grow potatoes all year round and do.

Another bit of green in the veggie garden are a couple of globe artichokes. I grew these from seed in the summer so am not expecting much until perhaps this coming summer, but I'll let you know how they get on.

There is something I grow every winter and it's peapods. I adore these and find that to grow them in the summer is difficult as it's just too hot up here, so over winter, spring and autumn is best. I always plant Alderman peas. They grow really tall - sometimes over 2m and the peas are huge and juicy. Almost none ever make it into the house!

Oh and  I have a very good piece of advice for pest control....ducks! I have 2 male ducks who have the free range of the place ( they don't get into the veggie garden when the plants are small though cos they have big slappy feet) they eat everything, snails, slugs, crickets they are amazing. And they're not like chickens (which I also have and ADORE)  who will scratch around and dig everything up - nope, they just sort of nuzzle around the place.

The Greenhouse
The greenhouse is 8ftx10ft and already I'm wishing I got a bigger one.
Even though there's not much actually happening in the veggie garden, there is a lot going on in the greenhouse. This is my first year of having a greenhouse so it's all rather experimental right now. We had tomatoes until last week, and I planted more from seed about 4 weeks ago. I did a bit of research to see which varieties may grow over winter and came up with Oregon Spring and Sub Arctic Plenty. I've been amazed with the speed they've grown and they already have flowers on them. I've no idea if there will be enough day light or heat or whatever else they need to produce fruit in the darker colder months, but we shall see!! I have high hopes.

You can also see some herbs - I just planted basil and coriander as these are our favourites and over winter we usually have to buy them.
The chillies I plant for Lloyd are still thriving and soon I think I'll trim them down a fair bit, so they can start fresh in spring again.

This is one of the Sub Arctic Plenty tomatoes, already with a wee flower. Both the SAP and the OS are a bushy type of tomato plant which should grow to around 1m. This is a different thing for me as I usually grow heirloom tomatoes where I prick out the laterals and they just keep growing and growing. I have to sort of bend them over and stake them.  This year I even had to prick out the tops of the ones in the greenhouse to stop them growing as they were like triffids.

And this is actually a lateral from the Moneymaker that I took out last week. I panted it in a pot, just to see how it would do. Rather well, it would seem :)

Elsewhere round the garden things are looking good. We have a citrus orchard, and an apple orchard, which also has plums, a peach and a tamarillo.

It's citrus time of year right now and I've been making a lot of lemon cakes - we love us a lemon cake.

This is the tamarillo - also known as a tree tomato. I'm not a huge fan of them, but Lloyd adds them to some of the chilli sauces he makes.

About 3 years ago we planted some avocado trees. They were tiny when they went in, but are now getting pretty huge. Last year we had one avocado on one tree and that was it. This year that same tree has about 12 and the other 2 have 1 or 2 each. So they're going to plan. Avocados are something else I love!
I planted these in the chicken run before I read somewhere that avocados are poisonous to chickens. However either my chickens are immune or they are 'rock hard' but they seem totally unbothered by them. And the bonus of having the trees there is that they get a huge amount of natural fertilizer from the chooks!

As for the rest of the garden - the non productive, pretty part (!) the camellias are in full bloom just now

 

and there are even some signs of spring around the place. 

 

I spent last week doing a lot of winter pruning of some of the trees in the big garden area - but not this one! This is our mighty oak, and was pretty much our reason for buying the farm.

For the next month I'll be mostly trying to keep on top of the mowing and nurturing the tomatoes in the greenhouse and there will be the usual weeding maintenance to be done in the veggie garden. We're also hoping to get part of the huge garden fenced off so that we have a larger area for the alpacas. The fencer is booked, just keeping our fingers crossed he shows up.

Lloyd and I are heading over to the Uk for three weeks -  in three weeks -  so I like to really get on top of things before we go. When we get back at the very beginning of August it'll be all go - planting all my veggie seeds and looking after them and getting the veggie garden ready.

I haven't really talked about the farm and there's probably loads I've missed out or forgot to mention in regards to the garden, but hopefully this has given you an idea of what we do with the place and what we grow. There's not much I enjoy more than going out into the garden and coming in with enough food to make dinner.

Please have a look at the other blogs