SoS – 5/1/19
This is probably a ‘dangerously close to being rejected post’ because it’s a late submit. I daresay all the northerners are safely tucked in bed, sleeping the night away.
*I, meanwhile, have weeded the veggie garden and discovered budding eggplants.
*I found that my terroir, although fertile, is dry as chips from day after day since Christmas of above 20’s temps, culminating in last Friday near 40 degrees.
This, despite an automatic watering system through the whole garden.
*I also found half rows – where some beastly underground beastie has chewed up seeds and they haven’t been allowed to germinate.
*My loganberry, now thirty or more years old, is finding that birthing fruit is all very well. It’s the ripening it can’t muster. So I suspect it’s time to remove and replace. It will be a hard thing to do as it came from my late mother’s garden. On a brighter note, I’m picking between 250-300 grams of berries (boysenberries, raspberries, strawberries, silvanberries) every day. These are most often frozen for the winter and then we make jam, coulis, brownies, etc as needed.
*The juvenile citrus are growing in oak wine barrels (which come from France actually).
They’re doing well. The kaffir lime is covered in leaves and has pimpled fruit as well. The Meyer lemon is healthy and has little babies sprouting.
*My herb patch, with which no self-respecting veggie grower/ cooker/eater would be without, is doing well and I have had to cut back things because they are triffid-like. It’s also home to a large blue-tongued lizard (do google, they aren’t pretty) which doesn’t half scare me when it pokes its reptilian head from under the rosemary. Love the bronze fennel flower amongst it all.
And that’s my six for this week.
***
I love growing veg.
There’s nothing so good as wandering out prior to dinner and picking fresh this and that. My partners in all of this, are copies of the two River Cottage Veg books – one print and one e-book.
And tonight, because of the fingerling zucchinis in the fridge and the four slightly bigger ones picked today plus the herbs and zucchini flowers, I’ll making a zucchini and rice filo tart.
But till then, I’m off swimming under a smoke laden sky.
Do read all the wonderful SoS links on https://thepropagatorblog.wordpress.com/2019/01/05/six-on-saturday-05-01-2019/
Cheers all!
Your Meyer lemons look healthy and so many good crops!
Enjoy the summer even if the temperatures are very high, I guess according to what the TV news say.
It’s become hot very quickly, Fred. we have a huge fire in one of our national parks and it’s covering the island in smoke, depending on which way the wind blows. Whilst I love swimming and being at the beach and in boats, I am finding the heat wearing. Friday was hell. I sat under the shade of our oldest Japanese maple with our grandson’s wading pool to dip into when it became unbearable.
Prue, is it possible to take cuttings of the loganberry and try to propogate ? I know my brambles self seed so would some of the seeds from the fruit propogte if maybe washed and puninto some compost ? I know its a precious bush for you x
I did wonder, Libby. But for the last three years, it’s been susceptible to a kind of rust as you can see in the photo. I wonder when would be the best time to take a cutting to avoid that. I also wondered about layering a healthy runner. What do you think?
I was thinking you could layer – does it ever throw up runners of its own accord?
Lovely to see your productive garden whilst ours are sleeping. I see the soil is dry but I’m sure you can improve its water retention over time by digging in lots of organic matter.
Katharine, the loganberry has never thrown up runners in thirty years. But it has long branches that I can peg down and layer.
Re the dryness, the dry here is spectacular and getting worse every year. My spring garden lasts for 3 weeks if I’m lucky. Summer garden? No such thing. The foxgloves have seeded and gone, the petunias frizzled, the cosmos struggling against the odds, the flowering shrubs are wondering if it’s worth the effort, so that essentially my borders are reduced to layers, tones and textures of green. We pay by the kilolitre for domestic water, so with an acre of gardens, one has to be judicious.
Our veggie garden is normally put to sleep for winter with a nitrogenous green crop growing in a fresh load of composted soil. The crop is then batted down and after awhile dug in. So there’s no shortage of organic matter. I protected all my veg and as much of the garden beds as I could last year with fresh green lucerne and as we’re about to cut and bale another crop on the farm, I think I shall go for broke, wet the garden and pay dearly for the privilege, and then lay down the hay.
I suppose Prue you could try layering healthy runners and see how that goes, and maybe try cuttings as well if you can, its only a bit of time and compost, and nothing ventured nothing gained, worth trying I think especially as it has memories <3
There speaks the voice of a true propagator, Libby! 😉
I too enjoy making fresh jam in the winter. Lovely, from this chilly climate, to see the sunshine, although you are probably desperate for rain!
Hi there, Granny. I noticed your yummy jam in the post and thought, there’s one of our mob! 😉 OH is the true jam maker (i make the chutneys) and he made 14 jars of cherry plum jam on Saturday. It’s wonderfully sweet-sour and a real favourite with us. We call it cherry glug because of it’s setting nature.
And yes, a day or so of good wet rain would be the bees knees.
Have read about the fires. Hope you are ok!
Thanks for your thoughts, Barbara. They’re in the southwest of the island, so currently we’re safe but depending on wind direction, we’re covered in smoke daily.
The sad part is that it’s ruined vast areas of world heritage wilderness and is now at the 16,000+ hectares of fire. That wilderness can take anything up to 500-2000 years to reach maturity and it’s all gone. We have February yet to deal with and that’s our crucial fire month so we will all be on tenterhooks as it gets drier and hotter. Today, mercifully, its grey and quite cool.
Those oak barrels are rather nice. I hope it’s possible to take a cutting from the loganberry as others have suggested.
I hope so too. It’s worth a try anyway. As to the barrels, our hardware stores have fabulous sales periodically where they sell off French and Australian wine barrel halves. When our son married on the farm, we decorated the shearing shed with eucalypt branches stuffed into 6 half barrels. Once the wedding was done, OH and self claimed the barrels for the garden!
we brits are fond of moaning about our weather, but really we have it easy. the water falls out of the sky for free, usually in fairly reliable quantities! last summer was an anomaly I hope won’t be repeated very often – very hot and very dry, i did nothing but water the garden…
Hi Mr.P. Trust me, we moan regularly. It’s the human condition, I think. But Tasmania is a very dry part of Australia which is a weird anomaly being so far south of the equator and no one believes us when we say so, but it’s really true. The awful thing is that in my lifetime, we have seen rain reduced by half and our seasons compressed drastically. Spring is over in the blink of an eye, autumn becomes winter very quickly and we have loooooooong summers. That said, our winters are often dry and 9 degrees Celsius is a cold winter’s day and happens rarely – it’s most often about 11-12. The dry makes gardening a challenge and those with magnificent ones deserve valour awards, I reckon! 🙂