Thursday, November 12, 2009
Peeled loquat anyone?
The loquat tree didn't know what hit it this year - fertilised (more than once!), mulched and now netted from the birds. The fruit are now three times as big as last year, and deliciously sweet since they have been left to hang on the tree.
Planning to make jam, chutney, and a compote for guests breakfast.
Other exciting fruit tree news - the nectarine tree has fruit! Conversely the almonds have put on a poor show this year with only about two fruit.
Monday, November 09, 2009
Michael Park Craft Stall
Here's one of our raffles: mad by one of our talented mums who we are all in awe of. It's a seasonal tree. It stands about 40-50cm high and has been mostly needle-felted. Here it is dressed in it's spring colours - the fleece on the top can be removed, and replaced with summer one, then autumn colours, then winter has just the branches. Alex fell in love with it, and was very upset when the concept of a raffle was explained. He asked in a teary voice that if we didn't win could we please not tell him who did as that would make him sad. I'm half tempted to have a go at making one myself, but it's a lot to live up to!
And another one that wasn't mine, but I am keen to do one of these.
We had two basic themes this year - farmyard and woodland. Except it did end of mostly being woodland. We were all inspired to make different houses. Fascinating to see how they reflected the makers personalities.
Here's one of my house contributions. I did a few of these in night school woodwork classes (they think my projects are always a little weird). It's not the best pic, but basically the fabric can just be lifted off and changed so it can be a house, or a stable, or a garage. I've saved one for moo for christmas, and will make her a little story set to go along with it.
Friday, October 16, 2009
Other news - the duck nest is up to about 12 eggs, but she hasn't started sitting on them yet. I'm hoping she will otherwise there is a lot of lovely eggs going to go to waste. We were short of eggs the other day, and Melina suggested we go and help ourselves to the duck ones. Melina is enjoying the ducks - well actually mostly the duck food. I have this nifty system from the company 'Nosloc' where you fill up a big hanging bucket with food, and it has a nozzle in the bottom where the ducks peck at and the food comes out. It means I don't have to worry about feeding them every day. I was a bit worried they would be too dumb to figure it out, but thankfully it only took about 24 hours. Anyway Melina is fascinated by the feeder and likes to take an empty conatiner down, and then poke at the nozzle to fill up her container. I don't think she's quite got the concept of feeding the ducks yet. So far I've dissuaded her from taking the duck food back into her room.... The ducks think I'm wonderful at the moment. I've been planting in their orchard, and as soon as I dig a planting hole they waddle over and gorge themselves on the unearthed worms.
We're planning a trip to Melbourne at the moment to go to a friends wedding. It's at the beginning of December, so we've decided to take a week. Looking forward to it very much. Just need to find somewhere to stay.
Alex is back at school and seems to be enjoying it. He has opted to continue with Ukelele lessons which is great. He does have a good ear for music (unlike me). They are studying plants at the moment and the teacher requested some indoor plants for them to study. Today I visited a garden centre in town (bliss!) and bought him a venus fly trap. M swatted a fly and we fed it to the plant. Alex loves it.
And back to the garden. It's really becoming an increasingly bigger part of my life, despite my best efforts not to make this a gardening blog. Anyway the garden centre was fun. We only have a small one on the Island, so I thought a day in town to pick up laundry would be much improved by a trip to the garden centre. I bought two roses (to replace ones that had died in the vineyard), a greengage plum for a wedding present for a friend (they requested fruit trees for their orchard - I approve!), a herb plant just because I didn't know what it was (centella - which I've googled and seems to be good for all sorts of things), and two grafted tomato plants to conduct a scientific experiment. The tomato plants were hard to buy at $9 each but I do really want to see if the grafted ones make a difference to production. So I bought two 'roma' plants, and I have some of my own roma ones planted from seed. If the grafted ones work well, I might see if I can do my own grafting for next year.
That's about it from me, must head off to bed now.
Sunday, October 04, 2009
A Duck Update and Summer Garden Anticipation
And first raspberries - these are from my autumn-fruiting raspberries - they produce 90% of their crop in the autumn, then the same canes produce more laterals in spring and produce the remaining 10% of the crop in early summer. Well that's the theory anyway, will see what happens. I've pruned my raspberries in two different ways to see what happens to crop levels.
And the tiniest cutest furriest littlest peaches. The pukeko are not going to get them this year!
Friday, October 02, 2009
The Front Garden
This garden has also ended up being something of a 'show' garden. I guess because it is right in fromt of the house, so very visible, also to justify the $$$ spent - it'll appeal to the paying guests. So now have to keep it looking pretty. I was thinking about it today while I was working down there, there will have to be a balance there as I still want the kids to be able to do stuff and play down there, and also help themselves to produce.
Anyway, how about some before and afters. I did kind of try to take some of these to match. Had to trawl through the picture files quite a way back to get some of these 'befores'!
First up the stairs. Because we've had the below slope for the past couple of years, which has seen a few out of control wheelbarrows.
Here's a good one. The bottom of the vege garden area, after the digger's been. (One of Melina's first words was 'digger'. I used to sit her in her high chair eating her lunch while watching the digger work.)
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Ducks
They are for my new 'food forest' area, and are hopefully going to keep the slugs and snails under control, spread a bit of fertiliser around, provide some eggs, provide some ducklings for the children to nurture, and maybe even some ducks for the pot. I've been much more excited by them than I have been by chickens, not sure why, but I find them really appealing. But am slightly apprehensive now that I am responsible for something living that is not a plant. If my plants die I can just chuck them in the compost heap and no one knows, but I think even M might notice if a duck or two goes missing. I have been practicing for the upcoming responsibility actually - I've managed to keep a sourdough starter alive that someone gave me for almost a month now.
Here's where they are at the moment. This is their 'night-time' pen, and hopfully by the end of tommorrow I will have finished fencing the rest of the orchard area for them to be let loose on. If you look carefully you can see the drake heading in the duck house. He's spied me coming, and they've obviously decided that the duck house is a safe place.
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Spring
My front vegetable garden, which has been a work in progress ever since we moved here 3 years ago, is finally being finished at the moment. So that is very exciting for me. I've been wanting to take some pictures but thinkI will wait till it's all done. Only got the main entrance steps to do now - should be finished about Wed next week. When I will actually be away... But will be looking forward to coming back to them! Have been feeling a bit sorry for the landscaping guys - I've been thinking and planning this garden for so long that I know exactly where I want everything and how it is to be done, so they haven't had any creative licence at all.
In the mean time there are pockets of the garden that are being distinctly spring like. These globe artichokes surprised me yesterday when I noticed them.
Actually this is more a last of winter photo, but I was quite amused by what is quite possibly my largest leek and my smallest leek. Both planted at the same time and treated exactly the same.
Oh and look, a non gardening photo even managed to get in. Some pixies knitted for the upcoming kindy fundraising stall at Michael Park School. They're kind of addictive to knit. But decided 10 was a good number to stop at.
Wednesday, September 09, 2009
A New Food Garden
I've been thinking about this one for a while. It's taken three years to get to here, but now that I've got a definite vision it's quite exciting for me! The basic idea is that it is a sub-tropical 'food forest' style garden, designed with permacultural ideals in mind. So inputs should be minimal with mulch and fertiliser provided as part of the garden.
The site is less than ideal, being south facing, poorly drained, classic waiheke/auckland foot depth of topsoil then solid clay pan, and mostly sheltered, but not always. I despaired for this area for a while because of all these factors, but have gradually come to think about ways to work with all these issues, rather than against them. I also don't expect everything I do/plant to survive/do well. So a lot of it is experimental, but that's quite fun. Having said that I'm going to do my best to make it is a success. We never do anything by halves around here! (If it's worth doing, it's worth doing properly...).
Below picture shows my first 'before' shot. It is currently the location of the citrus orchard, and over the last couple of years all the oranges have died, and there has been very little growth on most of the other plants. The biggest problem for the citrus is the drainage I think - in winter if you listen you can hear the water trickling through the soil. The area is about 30m by 15m, and on a slope.
Here is another shot, from the bottom looking up/sideways, although have done a little work here. I've marked out the duck fence (more on that later) , planted a few more things, moved M's boat trailer to the allocated boat parking space (may be a little small...), and put bamboo stakes in with plant names on as part of my planting plan.
The first thing I did, apart from observation of the site over a couple of years, is draw up a to scale plan of the area. Then I use post-it notes to decide on what goes where. I do tend to draw up quite a detailed plan before I do a new large garden like this. The finished product often varies a bit from the plan but it is great for really thinking about where you want everything to go, and how it is going to work. Unfortunately I seem to have lost the drawing otherwise I would have taken a picture of it (a bit annoyed about that still, hoping it will turn up somewhere...).
So the plan.
1. The whole area is going to be mulched so there will be no grass. I have done small bits and pieces using seaweed, horse manure, leaves, and then covered with wood chip. This is ideal, but the area is too big to do it all like this, so the majority at the beginning will be covered with cardboard then have wood chip/mulch on top. I'll announce a working bee when I'm ready to do that!
2. Fertiliser and mulch materials will be provided by:
- comfrey strip 1m wide running down far left border, cut back a couple of times a year and distributed round
- lucerne strip planted next to comfrey, again to be cut back each year
- canna edulis (arrowroot) planted thickly in one corner for mulch
- abyssian bananas planted for shelter and mulch
- nitrogen fixing plants interplanted including dwarf kowhai, kaka beak, one inga bean, acacia floribunda
- native mulch plants interplanted: whau, coprosma (any other suggestions?)
- duck poop: I have four cayuga ducks coming to live. The whole area will be fenced to knee height to keep them in, and they will have a duck house and a pen area to shut in at nighttime so we can also collect their eggs.
3. The plants. Some of these I already have, a lot of the smaller ones I am growing from cuttings or seed, and others (the bigger trees particularly) I have on order to pick up later in the year. This is my current list. Some of these are probably marginal, although one big plus of this site is that it doesn't get frost (well I haven't seen one there yet, fingers crossed). (Sorry about some of this formatting, blogspot seems to have its own mind sometimes).
Canopy layer
- Existing fruit trees - mostly lemons, limes and grapefruit
Bananas
(Australian ladyfinger, ladyfinger, misi luki, island sweetie)
Babaco
Casimiroa
Cherimoya
Davidson’s Plum
Kaffir lime
Kaipara lemon
Longan
Loquat
Lucuma
Mountain Paw Paw - Mulberry
Pineapple
Paw Paw - Persimmon
Shrub layer
- Cardomom (false)
- Cape Gooseberry
Guava – red & yellow
Chilean Guava
Elderberry
Ginger – Chinese
Pink Pineapple
Pomegranate
Sugarcane
Herb/ground layer
- Aloe Vera
Alpine strawberries - Bulbs (daffs)
Cranberry
Lemon balm
Lemon Grass
Nasturtiums - NZ celery
(this is just a starting list, more will be added)
4. Other
Also will have an area for basket willows (hopefully, space is now starting to get a little tight!)
And a couple of beehives (another project I'm working on).
Here's a couple of plant markers. Putting these out was fun! And is good to play around with them before committing to it with actual plants. Now that they have been there a couple of weeks there are some that I'm definitely going to change.
And below is the first official plantings - bananas mostly which are hopefully going to suck up some of that excess water. Except in my excitement I completely forgot about nasty bunnies who proceeded to eat most of the bananas down to the ground. Grrrrr. Now everything has guards around them. I do at least usually learn from my mistakes...
And here's a pink pineapple. One of those ones from 'Incredible Edibles' which 'may or may not' fruit. But with a name like that it deserves a space. Alex has already claimed it for his own.
- Finish irrigation system (have put a tank at top of hill, also for deciduous orchard, which will gravity feed through drip lines). Hopefully will use less and less water as gets more established. Also need water supply for ducks. They are not having a pond as I think will get messy too fast, but instead largish containers of water. Grape picking bins will do nicely I think.
- Do duck fence before duck arrival in a couple of weeks, if all goes according to plan. Have got hardwood stakes to be hammered into ground, M will string wire across top of stakes, then the plan is to drape wind break cloth over the top and pin into ground. We have lots of cloth left over from vineyard establishment. Hopefully it will look tidy and unobtrusive.
- Finish painting duck house (I'll post later about this - it's cute!)
- Keep growing on plants from cuttings and seed
- Plant everything out
- Mulch entire area.
And that should keep me occupied for the next wee while!
Saturday, September 05, 2009
Beekeeping
i had such fun today. i escaped from the island and went along to the auckland beekeepers club field day. i've been interested in keeping bees for a while now, but it has always seemed a bit intimidating. i've had a couple of beekeeping books on my bedside table for night time reading for a while, but i've found it hard to get my brood boxes sorted from my supers sorted from my nucs. so it was great to see the hives being opened up and explained. i was also wondering how i would feel about being so close to so many bees, fortunately it was fine, i quite liked it actually.
there was a really nice mix of people there, from the oldies through to people who had brought their young children along and even a couple of teenagers. some of the catching a swarm stories were very funny. i might leave that one for a bit.
ideally i wanted to help out a beepkeeper for a season before launching into it, but not sure how that is going to go, so i think i might just get into it myself. and hopefully not make too many mistakes. i did meet a couple of other people from waiheke there, so now have a few contacts to call on to help me out. looking forward to the challenge! (and our own honey!)
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Room Renovation
but first - the main room of the guest room - we had already planned new curtains, because the ones already there
a) were stained permanently
b) didn't go all the way across the window
c) got jammed as you pulled them across
d) were a cream colour which clashed with the white walls
e) and one tall window, in the right hand side of the pic below, is a tall window which was obviously too hard to deal with for the previous owners put a board half way across the window to hang a curtain from which left the top part of the window uncovered, which i know annoyed people.
i forgot to take before photos, but this is an old one taken when we were looking to buy the property, so has previous owners other furnishings (please note!). tall window not so obvious but is on next pic.
and below is after shot. we replaced the tall window 1/2 curtain with a blind. am very pleased with the new curtains and blind, makes me happy every time i walk in there!
and just cause the entrance tiles had to come up too, we re-did the kitchenette. which i wish i did have a before pic of because it was NASTY. a home built (in the bad way) job that was in horrible colours with bad tiling. you'll just have to imagine and agree that even if you don't like black that this is much better.
so the rot meant we could fix up load of things which we knew did need doing but couldn't quite justify spending money on before. but not looking forward to the house ones being done as they don't have such obvious flaws, and there's no rot there.... yet. although again it has had a positive spin off as we've decided to put a proper laundry in the garage side area, instead of having it in the bathroom, which was really to small to cope with guest linen as well. i'll have to take some before and afters of that. any suggestions if you were custom building a laundry?
Thursday, August 20, 2009
A bit of a catch up
this was an activity from today which both melina and i enjoyed - we had a babysitter once who did this with the kids (she was a kindy teacher). basically you have a plate of milk which you drop diluted food colours drop by drop into and then swirl into patterns. it's more fun than you would think! the milk absorbs the colours so you can keep putting more and more in for a while.
melina has been getting increasingly braver and heading out into the garden by herself sometimes. ('don't come out with me mum i'll be okay'). i snuck out after her here with the camera - she was gathering nasturtuims for a dinner garnish.
i took the kids into town last weekend for a 'workshop' with a nzso quartet. it was very well done. completely over melina's head but alex took it all in. they showed the different techniques for using the instruments and how they created different sounds. then they got the kids to put an emotion to each of the sounds, then they had a story (which was very funny) which they got the kids to put the different sounds to at different parts, depending on what was happening in the story. then at the end they put it all together by getting someone to read the story while they played the background music. this whole process took about an hour. i was quite impressed. and it was free!
Monday, August 10, 2009
A finished project
it really makes such a huge difference. the children have already discovered it is good for walking along, and makes a convenient sitting place. i think it will be used a lot this summer.
A few garden pics
i went to prune the deciduous trees in the back orchard a couple of days and discovered that the almond trees were flowering already. ahem. they got a trim anyway. the pruning toook a bit longer this year as the trees have grown that much bigger. even had to get out a ladder for one of the peach trees. goal for this season it to save all the fruit from the pukeko and rats. which means far better net system that what i have been using and some heavy duty rat baiting.
thornless boysenberries all nicely tied up.
and the boysenberries which have far more growth on them. they are planted too close together really, will see how the fruiting goes this year. my brother stayed a night last week, and i dragged him very good humourly into the garden. he turned my compost for me. (anyone who turns my compost i remain eternally grateful to). he also helped tie up these berries. his girlfriend also accepted a pair of secateurs (very suspiciously, but gave it a go, so thank you too!) and pruned some of the raspberries. only have half a row of raspberries to go now.
the southern gardeners seem to be sowing seeds with enthusiasm, which made me sort mine out. sent off the seed order which arrived very promptly a couple of days later. now just waiting for the agricultural supplies delivery on thursday to deliver the seed raising mix. one day i will make my own.... in the mean time i very much appreciate that they will deliver it to my door! looking forward to using my potting area properly for the first time. if you can't find me you know where i'll be.
Sunday, August 09, 2009
Grape Pruning Tutorial
If you have a grape vine you've probably already had a go at pruning it. But I only got round to the one by the house today, which is more typical of what people have at home, rather than what you do on a vineyard where they are planted rather close together. Actually, if you live in a frosty area the longer you can delay pruning the better, as they will start growing later if they are pruned later, so hopefully avoiding a damaging frost.
Here's what we're starting with. The main aim for this vine is to cover this pergola to provide shade in summer. I've been training it for the past three years, it's about 6 years old I think. Three years ago it was a bit of a tangled mess mostly up that far left front post. It actually had a bit of a set back this year when it was over-enthusiastically trimmed during the summer. (I've forgiven I think, but not forgotten...).
Even if your primary aim is for fruiting the techniques are the same. This vine produced so much fruit the past couple of years that it became an issue, as it's not easy to net on a structure like this so the birds made a mess of the deck and loungers below.
The most important thing to figure out with any pruning is to be able to tell what is last years growth (one year old), compared to anything older. Generally last years growth is skinnier, smoother, and a darker brown colour.
The second most important thing to figure out is where the plant produces fruit (the 'fruiting wood'). In the case of grape vines, the most grapes are produced off the current seasons shoots, that have arisen from buds produced in the previous season. Have I confused you yet? Hopefully the following makes it clearer.

But first, if you want to sound impressive, here are the technical terms:
(numbers refer to photo above)
1) Cordon: part of the permanent structure that you leave year after year. In the first couple of years at least you concentrate on choosing strong healthy growth which will become these. Cut out anything else.
2) Spur: This is last years spur, from last years pruning (it was a one year old cane last season, so contains those buds which from will come those fruit producing shoots). It was cut back to two buds.
3) Canes: This is the last seasons growth. You will choose one of these canes as the new spur. This will produce new shoots which will be the best fruiting shoots for the grapevine.
This spur above produced three canes - two canes burst from the second bud area which is more unusual. If both buds produced canes then choose the one closest to the cordon to keep as a new spur. This prevents what's known as 'castles' happening - long extended spurs. Actually at least one vineyard owner I know doesn't mind castles, but I try to stick to that generally. It's tidier anyway and I'm a tidy gardener:)
If the first (i.e 3a) cane wasn't there (the bud didn't get it's act together and grow), or if it was weak, small or damaged or diseased, you could also cut it out in favour of the second one (3b).
So, if you are still with me, below pic shows what this now looks like after pruning.
So, that is all the remains of all that rampant growth from last year. You can space your spurs about a hand's width apart. Most vines have their own personality, and that will dictate exactly what grows where, but that's the general gist.
Actually it would be far easier if you could just come here and I'll show you. Or even better, maybe I should just come round to your place...
And an hour or so later, here's the finished vine. Spring can now officially come any time it likes. Well maybe after I've tackled the monster grapevine at the kindergarten.
And that will be my last garden tutorial for a while you'll be pleased to know as I think I've managed to confuse even myself, it's amazing how something that seems so simple when I'm doing it can be so complicated to explain!
And it should also be noted that there are other ways to prune grapes as well. (Plus a lot more technical terms if you're interested....)
Wednesday, August 05, 2009
Winter School Holidays
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