Garden Update – June (!!)

Winter has set in, fortunately in the southern hemisphere that does not mean the garden must be laid to rest for months. Today being a particularly rainy day means time for reflection on the bounty we harvested and update on what’s happening now.

Our most prolific crop this year would have been jalapenos! We continually harvested up until we had a frost. We made salsa, hot sauce, jalapeno powder, cheddar jalapeno bagels, and loads of pickled jalapenos to last til next summer. Some of the plants produced incredibly hot jalapenos – I have suspicions that they cross-pollinated with a ghost pepper chili plant as they were not your ordinary jalapeno. The flavor was amazing, and I only hope we can replicate the success again this summer. A few things to note to grow hotter peppers: be stingy with the water when the plants are setting fruit, watering when the leaves get a little droopy; let them age on the vine, as the capsaicin increases over time; and don’t plant near other varieties of peppers as they can cross pollinate.

Our tomato crop was ok, beefsteaks definitely were the most impressive as far as size and flavor! The San Marzanos produced bountifully and were used on many delicious pizzas. Most of the tomatoes we planted in containers were poor performers. I suspect the roots spread out too close to the edges of the pot and the heat of the wicked New Zealand sun scorched them. We neglected to plant cherry tomatoes, I’ll be sure to be onto it next year.

Our zucchini plant failed to produce even one zucchini! Our Garden Guru says the soil may have some sort of sneaky zucchini virus so we are not to plant it there next year. Fortunately for us we were gifted more zucchini than we could ever have eaten anyhow… I even tried dehydrating salt and vinegar zucchini chips – they had a nice crunch and were tasty, although they did not keep well in a baggie (sad soggy zucchini resulted) perhaps in an airtight container they might last longer than a day.

Once again we felt defeated by beets, though we did manage to grow a few good ones which is more than we ever have in past. We purchased a whole lot on sale and Rew made the most amazing beetroot chutney and I made some beetroot jalapeno ketchup which is particularly delicious on a burger.

Today’s wet weather alternates between pouring rain and the sun peeking through which makes for really brilliant greenery! I took advantage of a break in the rain and snapped a few photos.

Brilliant shades of green. Interestingly, the succulent (top left) turns a reddy-purplish black with exposure to sun and is otherwise green. In summer the whole plant turns dark, while in these short daylight hours it has gone green.

My first black pansies to blossom are in the top pot! I’m loving how the bottom planter is filling out with sweet william and flowering kale. Also this is a peek at one of my other projects involving succulents and driftwood!

Wasabi plants are loving the lush wet weather, as their native habitat is in mountain streams in Japan

Valerian root seems to like it’s spot, chamomile is contained next to it and a wee parsley is in the near pot. I’ve scattered seeds from another parsley plant around so hoping this turns into a bucket of parsley!

Silverbeet and kale are going strong

In the world of succulents, I’ve got a huge aloe that is about to flower! I can’t wait to see what it’s going to look like soon, check it out! Also I have a small cactus sending out a few flower shoots:

My favorite succulent planting from this year would have to be this arrangement of several different varieties. I like how the rear plants are tall and spread out, the front drapes over the edge and the middle has the single succulent taking up whatever room it’s allowed.

Well it’s been a lovely day for catching up on the garden happenings. I’m off to enjoy the rest of this rainy winter day with a pile of books and tea.

 

What’s Growing Today

Tomatillos

We have tomatillos growing! So exciting, this is our first time planting them. They look like little green paper lanterns and seem fragile with a small berry sized seed inside. The bees love the blossoms and all of the plants seem healthy and are producing!

Chard! aka silverbeet

Corn! Rhubarb on the left

Kale is happy back behind the garage

San Marzano tomatoes, jalapeno in front and

Snow peas, growing a bit weird maybe they’re not getting enough sunlight

Sugar snap peas

White strawberries

Tomatillos

In other vegetable news… tomatoes are coming along nicely, been picking off the laterals regularly and making sure they’re properly staked, chard and kale and corn are all growing well (our first time growing corn!). The beans we planted amongst the corn don’t seem to be growing very much, our Garden Guru is having a similar problem so maybe there were some dud seeds out there. The snow peas and sugar snaps aren’t getting full sunlight so I don’t expect a huge yield. I’ve been eating strawberries and we just got a white strawberry plant which is producing as well!

Super happy with my succulents too… The pink flowering succulent is an iceplant we just got from Rew’s dad, I couldn’t believe those gorgeous flashy pink flowers were from a succulent! I planted several cuttings around the garden hoping a couple will take.

Enjoying the greenery of our garden and seeing things begin to grow. It makes our yard so cozy and peaceful, I love being surrounded by the beauty.

First Photos – October 2015

Well we had to start somewhere, so here are pics of what the garden looks like now. It’s the start of spring and we’ve got lots planted already. I can’t wait for it all to grow!

The walkway leading up to the front door had roses when we moved in a year ago. I pruned them, basically cutting away anything that was hanging over the footpath or growing low to the ground. Last year we put in the bay tree in the back, and that enormous osteospernum (purple flowers) in front of it, along with the wild NZ spinach on the far right – the best spinach, thick leaves, and it grows like crazy. I recently planted violas and cyclamen, and we put beet seedlings in as well. We haven’t worked out what to do with those cement blocks yet… we’re thinking moss and native ferns?

Our front door – Rew built shelves for me. I put together pots of succulents, the flower box with violas, and there’s some mint and microgreens in there too. Over on the right we have a blueberry pot, lavender, and more succulents.

My first hanging basket! When I was about halfway through I thought I might have overcrowded this… and Rew reminded me that we are, at best, experimental gardeners. So I just went with it and we’ll see what happens.

San Marzano tomatoes along the back – who’s excited for fresh tomato & mozzarella pizza? – and Cos lettuce (Romaine) in front

Red leaf lettuce with some cos in between – Rew built these planter boxes, three in total, and put blocks between them for our strawberry plants. He’s so handy!

Pretty strawberry pots, filled with transplants that didn’t do much last year. They seem way happier in full sun with a bit of strawberry food.

Our Asian herb and onion patch! Rew’s very excited for this area. We gathered the driftwood off the beach last month and he built this little addition. That’s Vietnamese mint on the left, with some spring onion seeds planted behind it. The netting is our creative way of keeping the coriander (aka cilantro) from being dug up by the neighborhood cats!

The right side of the Asian herb patch has lemongrass (left), shallots (right), and Thai basil seedlings under the net.

This is our herb garden that we established last year. Everything in here grows crazy big. Left to right starting in the back we have parsley, marjoram, rosemary, sage, lemon thyme and rocket (arugula to my US friends). Then up front and left are spring onions, chives, pizza thyme, regular thyme, and dill. The lemon thyme was the only thing planted when we moved in, and we had to cut about half of it out to make room for the two new thyme plants.

First attempt at growing sweet corn! We are sprouting some green beans to plant among them. The rhubarb on the left was planted last year, and there’s a bit of parsley on the right from last year. We had planted chili peppers here and apparently parsley is a good companion plant.

Along the back of our garage, we’ve got rainbow chard up front (it’s called silverbeet here but I haven’t caught on to that one yet) and kale in the back box. That black thing is our compost bin, which makes me very happy as instead of throwing away food scraps, we turn them into good dirt. It makes the neighborhood cats happy too as there are a couple of mice living in there… there’s a few cats that sit and stare at it throughout the day. I like to think it’s a good zen cat time, because those mice are not coming out.

Along the garage wall Rew has put up some stuff to allow our peas to climb! On the right we have snow peas and on the left are sugar snap peas. The other bits are flowers and succulents. We gather shells from the beach and throw them in with the rocks for decoration – I tend to steal them for drainage in my succulent pots so we have to refill from time to time. Luckily we have an unlimited supply!