The Garden Share Collective ~ June

It's almost June already? How on earth did that happen?

So, there's not a whole lot going on in my garden just now.
Here's what there is...

The broad beans are growing incredibly fast. They've only been in for 6 weeks. Can't wait to get some beans - yummy.

My sweetpeas are coming along nicely. I'm hoping for some beautiful flowers this spring.

The lavender is flowering and is attracting lovely bees to the veggie garden. I just planted it in there this summer. I really like having flowers in the veggie garden.

And the bumper avocado crop. I am SO excited about this. Even more exciting is that there is a new market starting up in the town near us. We're hoping that we can sell a mixture of things - like Lloyds Chilli Sauce (he booked a day in a commercial kitchen last week and made about 12 litres), his book, and perhaps some avocados.

The globe artichokes are on to their 4th crop! each time we hack them down to ground level they zoom right up again and produce more! Amazing.

I don't think I've posted about our lemongrass before? well, it got a bit dried out and meh last year, so I hacked it right back to ground level  ( i seem to have been doing a lot of ground level hacking!) and cleared out the dead and dry bits. Gave it a bit of a feed with alpaca poop and voilá, lovely lemongrass again. We use it a lot in the kitchen. Often just using it as a skewer for chicken - the flavour is amazing.

Greenhouse tomatoes still producing well. One of the sub arctic plenty plants from last year is still producing. I gave it a good prune and lots of feeding. I've never had a tomato go on for so long.

Citrus season is in full swing. Which means lots of baking of lovely lemony things!

Olives - another thing I've never mentioned before! We had a wee cottage put on the farm a good few years ago, now. We use it for friends and family when they come to stay, but it's also rented out as a holiday let. We planted the garden from scratch at the time. Not having a lot of money, we pretty much bought trees that were on special! Some turned out beautifully and some not so well. Not that they were horrible or anything but one was a silk oak, that grew to over 30m in about 4 years. It sadly, had to come down as it was simply in the wrong place.  Having volcanic soil here,  everything just grows so fast. We did, however, plant a olive tree. It is laden. The branches are bending with the weight of the fruit, but unfortunately we have no idea what kind of olives they are. We're guessing they're for pressing as they are small. Can anyone help with the identification??

and finally...lovely autumn Acers.

So, that's it from me this month. 

Please go and have a look at all the other amazing gardens in the Garden Share Collective. This is the brain child of Lizzie from Strayed from the Table. 

Finally....!

Those of you that have been reading this for a while will know about my obsession and failed attempts to grow a luffah. Yeah, I know!

Anyway, this year, I have finally managed to grow not one, but four! Four!

Only one of them was ready to be peeled. It was the first one to grow on the vine, so a couple of weeks ago I picked it and took it inside to dry. The other three are now drying out as well. I picked them off the vine this morning, I was worried it was getting a bit wet and dewy and that they may rot. I've hung them in the cats' room larder to dry.

BUT! here's the one I peeled, got the seeds out and cleaned. It may not be the biggest luffah in the world, but it's my luffah. Can you tell I'm thrilled?

And another plus point is that I now have lots of seeds to plant!

These ones are off to dry out.

Here's what you do ~

wait until the luffa has dried out.  I saw lots of pictures of ones where the skin had gone totally brown and crispy. I did my first one when it was still a yellowy green colour. I picked a tiny bit off to see what it looked like, then decided to go for it! the skin came off very easily. The luffah wasn't dry, so I left it overnight in the wee cupboard beside our range. It was nice and cosy. In the morning I shook out as many seeds as I could. It took a while. Then I washed it, in only slightly, warm water. After that I soaked it for about an hour in a very, very mild bleach solution. Then left it on the outside table to dry again. And voilá!
Hopefully the other three turn out as well.

Suggestions for what to do with it!

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 - April

I have to say, I am loving these Garden Share Collective posts. They give me a monthly calendar of the veggie garden. I've just been looking back over them and it's very cool to see what it all looks like month to month!

So, April...

The main thing this time is the veggie garden. It was well past its best. Lloyd and I have just spent a couple of hours totally clearing it.

BEFORE
Loads of dead stuff, pumpkins and squash all over the place. Just general mayhem!

AFTER
Now that it's clear, I can get my head round what I'm going to plant and where. I don't work well in chaos. I need order!

A few more before and afters. Pumpkins growing all over the asparagus ferns ( which really needed cutting down)

Nice clear beds, and the pumpkin haul. Not too bad from only one crown pumpkin plant and one butternut squash.

I'm really pleased with these. I only bunged them in because I had a spare bed and didn't want to waste it.

So that was a hard graft, but it feels good to have got it done. We are enjoying an Indian Summer in Northland in NZ so we have to make the most of it.

In the greenhouse
I am still getting hundreds of tomatoes. One of the plants I planted last autumn is STILL producing tomatoes! It's the wonder plant!

These cherry tomatoes are so sweet. (Sweet 100)

There are chillies coming out of our ears. We've got about 5kg of them in the freezer. Lloyd does a stockpile then makes a gigantic batch of chilli sauce when we've picked them all.

Theres some more basil in there and a few tomato seedlings to go in as well.

This month - PLANTING
I don't do a lot of winter veggies. But this year I am going to do broad beans - always do these, and some parsnips.
I just planted a load of sweetpea seeds.

Also will collect a huge trailer load of alpaca and horse poop - put it on some of the beds -  definitely the asparagus bed - then cover with a thick layer of hay. By spring it will have mulched right down and will make a weedfree ( almost! ) bed with lovely top soil!

HARVESTING
Tomatoes, potatoes ( Agria and Maori) loads of herbs, chillies, the luffahs, globe artichokes, passion fruit, feijoas, figs, bananas, spring onions...


In the rest of the garden...
we've got flowers all over the place

Brugmansia like a detura !

Castor oil plant flowers

My swan plants are still bearing up under the onslaught of monarch caterpillars. This year has been great, so many of them have hatched! It's so cool!

This month the alpacas were all injected with their boosters, drenched, toenails trimmed and the ones that have genetic dermatitis got their cream put on. We don't do all this ourselves. The lovely Keenan from Waiheke Alpacas comes and does it - I run around like a daftie trying to catch them and generally making a fool of myself. This year one of the girls spat in my eye! That wasn't fun!

Oh and remember the elderberries from last month?  Well, I did make something from them. I made 2 batches of elderberry elixir - its lovely!

Today was a good day and incredibly productive. I also cleaned out all the chicken houses and put new bedding in them.

                                                                   ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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!!