Tomatoes and garlic

 

Sorry to keep you all in such suspense with this, I know you were dying to know. The first tomato of the season was... Juliet! Harvested on 30 Dec. I do like this variety - it is F1, so obviously bred to be reliable. It has lots of fruit which are a quirky oval shape. They are sweet and firm and, most importantly, quick to ripen!

 Quickly following up were Brown Berry. I may have picked one before I left - can't quite remember - but I definitely picked them when I was home on the 7th of Jan. They are tasty little cherry tomatoes, but not too sweet (I'm not really that fond of super sweet tomatoes). And they ripen quickly too, yay.

This is Sunset's Red Horizon, which I thought would be the first pickings. I guess the size of the fruit is what's taking them so long to ripen - they are about the size of cricket balls now. Not far off tasting though!

  

Here is the garlic harvest, dug up on 27 Dec. I let it dry in the sun for several days and then plaited it using Gillybean's tutorial. 

 Then I hung it on my trellis to dry some more. ♥! I saved the five biggest bulbs for seed for next season and put them in a plait of their own. There's also a little plait of bulbs I had left over... the big one was getting unwieldy! Next time, I'll add flowers.

Potager update

 

Hi again! I didn't intend to be away from the blog for so long - I just got into summer holiday mode, doing what I want when I want, and I happened to not feel like blogging. It was hot, a stack of magazines was calling, I had daydreaming to do... oh, you know the story. I love summer holidays. 

Well, I'm kidding a little bit, because I did more than just laze about. Above you can see what I got up to... the curved brick path is finally laid! It was hard hard work, as I knew it would be, which is why I put it off for so long. And the ground was hard hard dirt.

 

Here's another shot to show how the paths connect. In the foreground are potatoes, which are being steadily harvested. Right at the front I planted some dianthus. It will probably take a while to bloom, but I really felt the need for more flowers in my vege garden! Plus they should hide the messy edges quite well. In between them I'll probably sow some drifts of salad greens, or maybe rainbow chard.

 A side-ish view. Golden zucchini, going mad. To the right, potatoes! At the back left you can see the tomato grotto. The A-frame stakes at the back have peas sown under them and I think might be used for broad beans in winter. There's also a butternut squash plant sulking in front of them, I think it might be a bit late in the season for it. Of course if it does take off, it will smother the peas.

 This is the bit I meant to show you a couple of weeks ago - the Ellerslie-inspired flower garden. More plants are blooming now which is great, but it needs to fill in a lot more. Possibly more silver foliage is needed too.

After much (heartbreaking) fruit drop, I've been making sure to water Miss Rose Chiffon the peach tree every day. She's now clinging to her last 12 or so fruit and I damn well intend to eat them.

 

  I am proud of this petunia though, she's been flowering her little heart out. Pretty much carrying the whole show really.

Further down the row, thyme and catmint are good friends. I like the country-cottage feel in this little patch - maybe I'll just distribute herbs all over the place.

Well it's back to work for me this week so my holiday is over. Bring on the weekend...

New year

So here it is, 2011. I'm hoping fervently that it's better than 2010! I'm trying to relax at the moment, since I'm on holiday from work. But as the year ticked over I felt the urge to make lists - all the projects I've had in my head to make, things to plant in the garden, books to read etc. There were a lot of things written down and I know I won't get through half of them. But having them on paper at least means they're out of my head and I don't need to keep worrying about them.

I've been down in the dumps ever since that stupid earthquake - so to cheer myself up I'll be doing another series of "Simple Things" posts - just as a reminder to take joy in the little things. But first, I'm going to Timaru to stay with my mum for a few days, catch up with some friends, and make the most of this summer weather (don't turn, don't turn, don't turn!)

How's this for a new year's harvest? Spuds, baby carrots, borlotti beans, garlic, zucchini and the first two tomatoes. This lot all went into a lovely vege curry. I have some pictures and future posts planned about the garlic harvest and the first tomato (it wasn't the one I was expecting!).

Till then, happy new year to you all.
xxx

Handmade Christmas present round up

This is a round up of the gifts I made this year. It's not as many as in previous years - I had to cut back a bit or I'd have been holed up in my craft room all year! I started fairly early, October I think, and made a big pile of Christmas cards as well.

This little cloud mobile was easy to stitch up from felt. I made three of them, one for my nephew, one for Jonny's nephew and one for my goddaughter. The raindrops are scraps of cotton fabric.

The quote on the front was hand embroidered. It comes from quite a beautiful little poem by Langston Hughes:

APRIL RAIN SONG
Let the rain kiss you
Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops
Let the rain sing you a lullaby
The rain makes still pools on the sidewalk
The rain makes running pools in the gutter
The rain plays a little sleep song on our roof at night
And I love the rain.

These were presents for my workmates. They are coloured glass nail files, and I made a little sleeve for them from the green openweave ribbon.

Stitched a few beads at the bottom for added sparkle...

... and attached a flower and ribbon at the top. I was going to make one for myself to keep, but of course I never quite got round to that and I'm unlikely to do it in the future!

This wasn't made by me, but for me (yay!) My mum made it - you might recall seeing a similar one in her garden in my first Real Gardens post.

That's it for the round up this year. Did you give or receive anything handmade?

Want flowers, need flowers

This is a picture I took at the Ellerslie Flower Show this year. It's been on my desktop ever since, burning itself into my consciousness until I'm sure it's only a matter of time until it just turns up one day outside.

The design is "An Englishman's Retreat" by Chris Beardshaw. The key elements are the tall trees and the spires of the delphiniums, and the colour scheme of purple, silver and shots of red.

And here is my garden... not looking very similar at all I know! I grew most of these plants here from seed, and they have not been particularly quick off the mark, even with the warm spring. The exception is this rampaging petunia, although it comes with its own story of failure (out of a packet of about 100 seeds, only 4 germinated). The other plants are alyssum, angelonia, godetia, gilia and lambs' ears (which is going well - it's already been divided about 4 times). And of course, some extra tomatoes next to the fence.

Anyway, I'm really craving an abundant garden filled with flowers. My slow seedlings weren't cutting it, so I went to the garden centre and looked for Plants That Are In Flower Now. Happily, I managed to make most of my selection from the bargain bin too.

I got gaura (pink and white), nicotiana, impatiens, echinacea Hope (the same as in the show garden! Yay!), arctotis and a pretty, cottagey shrub with pink flowers that I forget the name of.

Close up of Arctotis Louise. I'm going to put this along the side of the driveway - hopefully I'll be able to divide it into two or three sections.

Instant seal of approval.

Today was 31 degrees C, so I waited till late afternoon when it was a more modest 25. Then I planted them, watered, mulched, and admired... and completely forgot to photograph! The forecast for tomorrow is rain, which is good for little plants establishing themselves, but not so good for photos. Anyway, I'll update when I can.

Season's Greetings

I'm a little relieved that Christmas has been and gone - what with everything that's gone on this year I really wasn't feeling the spirit! I had a nice, whirlwind kind of day catching up with lots of family in Timaru, all of whom I don't see often enough so it really was great to see them.

Arrived home about 6pm yesterday to another flurry of aftershocks, there are more cordons up around town and plenty of police directing traffic. We missed most of the aftershocks due to being down south (and I'm glad about that - particularly glad that I wasn't in town or in a mall when they hit!) but there were a couple of goodies last night which had me waking up in a hurry.

I have the next couple of days off work and I'm really looking forward to taking it easy (ha! Like that will actually happen with the garden looking the way it does), or more likely being lazy.

Hope you are having a good summer/winter break, wherever you may be.

Weird Cat Behaviour #4

WEIRD CAT BEHAVIOUR #4*

Sleeping on the doormat. No, of course you're not in the way there, I can step quite easily over you balancing a basket of laundry and the hedge clippers! It's especially fun when you jump up and try to go in the door while I'm closing it, balancing said objects!

To be fair, it was 28 degrees C. I couldn't be bothered moving much further either.

*Usually followed up by Annoying Cat Behaviour #1358 - sharpening claws in the screen door while wailing to be let in or out.

December ramblings

I've been meaning to post here for a while. I've even had these photos uploaded for several days. But I've been rather busy and tired, and I've had to have early nights because it's getting hard to pull myself out of bed in the mornings. We are shifting to a new location for work this weekend (after being displaced by the earthquake), so a final weekend of hard yards is required and then no more double bus trips! No more getting out of bed before the breakfast radio hosts have even come on air! No more cold, rattly, stuffy, poky, inconvenient work building. Hooray!

So, here's the potager in the early morning light a couple of weeks ago. No, I still haven't laid that last brick path. Potatoes are growing madly in the foreground and you can see the tomato stakes over by the shed.

At the moment I'm harvesting broccoli, rocket, lettuce, pak choi, peas, strawberries, potatoes, various herbs and spring onions. Annoyingly I had to buy a punnet of spring onions to plant out, as I forgot to sow seeds in time to replace the ones I've just about finished harvesting. I got into such a good pattern last autumn, but over winter they all slowed down and came ready all at the same time and I was too busy picking them to think about sowing them. I've let a few go to seed so I'll have some more to sow later.

This is the first potato harvest! It doesn't look like much but I was thrilled with it. These are Heather. I sneaked these out from under a few different plants as they started flowering - apparently this is known as "bandicooting". I'll wait till the flowers die down before I harvest the rest - in the meantime the Swifts are ready.

In the glasshouse the tomatoes are working hard. This is Sunset's Red Horizon. The photo is out of date already - the fruit are probably about the size of golf balls now. Still stubbornly green though. Most of the glasshouse tomatoes now have green fruit. Sunset is in the lead, followed by Arctic, and Amazon Chocolate is growing a big mutant fruit formed from several flower heads.

This cute heart shaped strawberry was fun to eat, but makes me a little sad now. I have strawberries in baskets in the glasshouse, and I also had baskets in a wire plant stand outside the front door. Someone stole the plant stand, and the strawberry baskets, on Saturday night. I went out to water them the next morning and they were gone. Nothing else was taken - not the potted blueberry bush, any other pot plants, or the wooden chair - which makes me think it was planned. Someone had probably walked past, seen the strawberries and decided to come back later and help themselves. The planter was top heavy, so they would have had to remove the baskets to carry it out. The fact that it was so obviously deliberate really annoys me... I would almost rather have found the baskets spilled on the ground, then I could put it down to some drunken idiot rather than a cold, calculated thief. It also annoys me that I can't have pretty things outside my front door (which is set back quite far from the street), without some loser thinking they have the right to just come along and take them. There's obviously a plant klepto on the loose in my neighbourhood... maybe it's time for me to get a dog, or some killer chickens!

Tomatoes

I just did a count up of all my tomato plants and I've got 23. Eight in the garden, seven in the glasshouse and the rest waiting to be transplanted somewhere there is room.

In the glasshouse are Black Krim, Juliet, Amazon Chocolate, Brown Berry (x2), Arctic and Sunset's Red Horizon.

Arctic is a cool-weather variety supposedly bred for the US military, to bear fruit in extremely cold climates. I've grown it before and it does ok, but not as well as I'd expect given that description! Sunset's Red Horizon is new to me this year, an heirloom variety from Bristol Seeds with "proven resistance to frost, blossom end rot and cracking". I like to plant at least one cool weather variety in case we have a cold spring. This year it's been warm and sunny, but even so Sunset is growing taller and producing flowers earlier than any of the others. Sunset and Arctic are the only 2 to have tiny green fruit so far.

Black Krim is a yummy beefsteak type that I've grown before and I love the flavour. The skin is a dark reddish black colour. Amazon Chocolate (also from Bristol Seeds) is also a beefsteak with a "winey, smokey, delicious taste".

Juliet is an F1 variety that I've grown before. It's a steady and reliable fruiter. The fruits are small to medium, oval shaped and very tasty. Brown Berry is also from Bristol Seeds (I like to try at least one new variety every year, so everything from Bristol Seeds is new to me this season), it's a cherry tomato, supposedly vigorous and yielding large crops. Semi-sweet, rich flavours and very juicy. I'm not sure how tall the plants will grow so I've staked them just in case, but I have noticed they look a bit more compact and bushy than the others.

In the garden I have Black Krim x2, Amazon Chocolate, Brown Berry x2, Juliet, Sunset, and Abraham Lincoln. Abraham Lincoln (Bristol Seeds) was limited stock and strictly limited to one packet per order, so I had to try it. Anything that limited must be good right? The description says, "High lycopene. Faithfully produces huge crops of meaty fruit." Another beefsteak I suppose. The reason I only have one in the garden and none in the glasshouse is that only one seed (out of 4) germinated, and it grew so slowly that it wasn't ready for potting on when I did all the glasshouse plants. It's catching up now though, so it will be interesting to see what it does.

Also in the glasshouse and just about ready to be transplanted out are another Amazon Chocolate, and some "bite size" varieties which I bought as seeds on sale at Bunnings: Green Grape, Yellow Pear and Red Fig (x5... must be a vigorous one). This afternoon when it cools down a bit I'll find somewhere to poke them in. I've got some pumpkin seedlings that need to go out too.

What tomato varieties are you growing this year?

Real Gardens #2

Jean and Graeme Holwell's Timaru garden might be small, but it is packed full of delightful plants and tiny treasures. On a sunny morning in early spring, mounds of green leaves are unfurling and buds are beginning to swell.

Everywhere you turn, there is something new and beautiful to see, like this little patch of crocus.

Even the street verge is beautifully maintained, with a patch of yellow polyanthus welcoming you to the garden.

This is a garden of contrasts, both in shape and texture. The path, formed of round concrete stepping stones and flanked by brilliant blue pansies, leads you towards the back of the property.

On the way you'll pass this clever bird bath. It's made from a saucer mounted on a piece of driftwood.

And end up at the pergola, which looks like a beautiful place to sit in on a warm summer's evening. There's even room for a small vegetable garden beside it.

The round stepping stones continue around the back of the house, where the rubbish bins, washing line and even a worm farm are tucked away.

Looking down, I noticed more lovely textures in the form of these groundcover plants scrambling over the round stones.

Here is a clever way of keeping tabs on tiny plants that die down over winter... a little bowl made of rocks. This must look so sweet filled up with little alpine flowers.

I hope you've been inspired by this tour - proof that you don't need a huge section to grow all your favourite flowers and plants. I'll be keeping an eye out for round stepping stones, and probably building a couple of rocky bowls for my cyclamen!

A big thank you to Jean and Graeme for letting me wander through your garden.