Broken Back Gardening

Hope you have all had a good Christmas holiday time no matter what your beliefs :O) and Best wishes for 2013 or 2012 V2.0 if you are a bit suspicious ... personally 13 has been a lucky number for me so I'm hoping 2013 will be good to us.. 2012 was a crappy year mostly and I've no wish for a repeat ....




McD has just handed me a plate of cream scones so lifes already improved immeasurably :O)




We've just come from the garden exhausted tired .... Too warm and after a few days of effort its time for an afternoon to our selves .....  The garden has been a mess.. yards, vegie garden, flower gardens all weed covered and embarrassing .... thats not to say our edible things haven't grown and we have had some good successes along the way...




Our Planned Xmas day dinner was to be a full roast as we had M-in-L with us as well as McD's daughter S... All good and with quail, rabbit, pheasant, duck etc bought the plan was for the big meal and then anything left over game pies were to be made for Boxing day ... trouble was we hit a heat wave right on Xmas day ! reached low 30s C ...Such a shock to the system and poor McD stuck in a hot kitchen .... The meal was awesome with homegrown potatoes, broad beans, cabbage to accompany the meats... Also McD had made an old fashioned Xmas pudding to the request of her mum... !!!! Now I have to say it was a complete surprise as to how good it was ... For no other reason than it was a steamed Xmas pud which brought back mixed feeling from all of us ...>We used a recipe from on of my English cookery books  and it was steamed for 6 odd hours then another 3 prior to eating .... But when we had it it was perfect ...... I've put an order in for the middle of the next  kiwi winter :O)

It was that good :O)

We finally decided to get some Chickens !! Well bantams .. and rescued a bantam hen and a chick a friend of Jills that was no longer wanted. They are now called Henrietta and Penelope (for Henny Penny). We then went and picked up a black(blue) Pekin bantam hen, now called Bluey. The chick didn’t stop growing though and is near to a full sized chicken … and then started crowing really badly. We are not allowed cockerels where we live (council regulations) and so it was becoming a bit of a problem… With the crowing becoming more frequent it was decided Penny would have to face the chop !!! But that very weekend Jill discovered a green shelled egg in the nest box and Penny was spared… The crowing stopped as well so all was good… The three of them laid daily and much money was spent on them in terms of two chicken huts with runs and another run as an extension as we’ve given them more and more room… The eggs we have had from them while nice are some of the most expensive in the country :O)  Jills loved having them though and its been great seeing her look after them …They squat down in readiness for Jill to pick them up ! Which she does and then brings them to the house for a bit of bread or when I’m gardening for some worms …

Anyway more recently all three went broody ….And so back to some strange (eccentric)  chicken people in the area for eggs.. Two different colours of Pekin bantams and some Orpingtons.. Some even hatched Xmas day which was nice..

Jo and Sallee (wet one)


Henny and Penny have a single brood of chicks that seem happy to be kept warm by either mum.. Bluey, we separated as the other two never really accepted her ..She has a couple of chicks who are well behaved and always do as she tells them ..the other 8 are an undisciplined rabble running around like miscreant kids on sugar highs :O)  

Jo and Sallee (in front)









Bertie





Bertie front and Agnes 




Scully the grey one ...The small one is named Fry..Poor fry got trodden on and now has a gammy leg ..... 










Plans are now already afoot to convert and extend an old dog run that was here when we moved in and had never been used. We’re also talking with people in case we do have to move …  fun fun fun….

We had a great garlic harvest this year again with some very large bulbs ... However the one back right is elephant garlic which we've tried for the first time this year ... 
  




Even the self sown tomatoes from the home compost are growing like champions..Hope they friut like champs as well ...... 






Last sunset of 2012 

What we laughingly call a (Veggie) garden (3))

And the Bragging Rights on naming the Red Campion flower in my previous post goes to OULIN ....:O)   Thanks for that :O)  

A number of our potatoes suffered a lot in this humid weather and despite efforts to save them, the leaves developed tell-tale brown spots then started to die back …. The affected tubs with affected potatoes in them were harvested. A moderate number of new potatoes were bagged and the plants disposed of to stop any spread. Some potato types were more susceptible to the disease than others.  The mixed varieties of jersey benne and Nadine potatoes in the raised border showed this well with the JBs ravaged with the blight but the nadines still green and healthy. The Maori purple potatoes we also have in tubs etc have been ok.  The JB plants have been cut back to just above ground level and the tuber will be left in the ground for a while hopefully without any fungus attack into the tubers themselves. 

Maori potatoes in a babies crib we got from a recycle shop at the tip ..... my babies are growing well and I'm looking forward to seeing a good harvest of round purple spuds soon .....    







Potatoes in a half barrel... we since moved them to another spot away from a bed of tomatoes to the right ...... these are still growing well are are just flowering



Our Broad Beans have been exceptional. This is both the transplanted ones and the direct sow plants … the heirloom red seeded broad beans are a favourite. I love them cooked with the Egyptian onions we grow, a clove of garlic and a little butter …. We cook them up into curries and stews etc – just the best …. They are still growing strong and we are picking a big basketful of pods each week ..But have stopped flowering of course and have been knocked about by the winds we’ve experienced. So by the end of January they will be pulled out and the bed prepared for the next crops. ..Something for winter ….   Though come Feb/March I could plant some more Broad beans again …

 

broad beans Growing tall to the top right of the picture.. these have since been pulled up due to them getting plagued with orange rust .... The border is now being prepared with home made compost in readiness for the next crops to be planted ... 

End of one gardening Year - Start of the Next

For the Maori of New Zealand the Shortest day (same day as the longest day in the northern hemisphere) heralds the start of the new year ... For the gardener this is especially true . From that day on as the days start to legnthen, Camelas start to flower and buds of trees start to fatten and the sap starts rising. It's a short dormancy in New Zeland for plants.



It's been a strange winter in that despite the unusually cold weather it's been patchy and in between we've had some reasonably warm days ... Plants are confused with some Rhodos and camelias flowering earlier than usual .. We have at least one native Kowhai tree in flower in the area ..These normally flower in September. We have Daffodils on the roundabout that begins our township already starting to flower... Put this into perspective - It would be like daffodils in January in England ........







Being out of action with my back problems, I didn't get to plant any vegetables in the autumn for winter cropping .. .We do have a few cabbages and pak choi and celery and chard to pick at. It's all great for stir fries or even just adding to stews and casseroles ....







We've planted a heap of garlic this year after last years wonderful heritage crop. So different to the shop bought garlic ..Very pungent.. wonderful taste ... We also planted a small crop of Elephant garlic this time ...Just to try it ... The garlic did try and make a break for freedom pushing itself up and back out of the ground ...Soil a little light ?? Planted too shallow ?? One heck of a good root system produced already - We tucked them back into the soil a little deeper this time with a good pat of the soil on top...







Strawberries were not only a great success last season fruit wise they shot a load of runners out that snaked their way across the raised beds. We've made use of a few of them  to extend the population ...Now having 8 squares (2 rows) at the end of each of the 3 main beds ... Already trying to flower I must get some decent compost for them with potash to get them fruiting .....







I was caught out at the weekend ...We saw some Broad Bean Seelings in punnets at the local garden centre ... Bought a few punnets as we planted nothing in the autumn ... Only to find out in reading that they do not grow well this way ..Not liking transplanting .... What can I say - I'd always planted seeds previously. I just never thought it would be an issue with seedlings ... Never trust a garden Centre ........ However they are in and we shall see ....But will be planting seeds as well very soon for my Christmas lunch harvest...







Another semi failure  story ...I'm trying to build a polytunnel over one of the raised beds (maybe two) .. We bought the tubing at what turned out to be about 3 times the cost we could have gotten it for AND what we bought was too flimsy for want of a better word ... But we will see what we can do with it and some wood or cane supports .... 







In one border wit hthe polytunnel I want to plant some potatoes ... The jury is out on this, As to whether the winter is mild enough to allow the spuds to grow .. One NZ gardening magazine  editor tried to gow them a couple of months back only to have the frost turn them black ... Maybe in a poly tunnel we can do it ....







I Quite like the idea of this 

Kitchen garden Design

Planting a raised border for a specific requirement...Not sure how practical that is ...Especially with the square foot gardening as you do tend to plant what you can and what wasn't there previously for rotation cropping...... 







More Bad news at the Dinzie household...Pepsi Dog (picture in last post) has ruptured both knees of her back legs ..Old age sucks eh .. She's on painkillers now but they want to operate ...$5,000 for the ops alone, never mind the pre/post op charges  ... She's almost 12 years old and life expectancy of up to 14 ......  



Well that is number 4 of the bad things that can happen to the dinzie household in 2009 .. And it's only July .....