Orchard update - sometimes things just don't work out

In July 2009 (can't believe it was so long ago!) ago we created a mini-orchard that we planned to espalier. We had 2 plum trees, 2 cherries, 2 apricots, 2 peaches, a nectarine, 2 apples, a pear and a nashi. A friend with a digger came over and drilled some nice big holes for the trees, we put in posts, strung wire, planted and looked forward to many home grown fruity adventures.

Five years (!!) down the track, the orchard experiment has been a failure. With the exception of the two plum trees, which have given us buckets of delicious plums, all the trees have failed to thrive. In fact, most still look almost as spindly as when they were planted. One of the apricots grew quite well, but gave almost no fruit. We can't say for sure why this has happened across so many of the trees - poor soil, wrong location, not enough feeding/watering (or both). However, given the peach tree in the veg patch we planted in 2008 before now has a trunk thicker than my leg (and gives the most amazing peaches), it became more and more obvious that there wasn't going to be a miraculous growth spurt.

At the same time we have been thinking about a new chicken coop up closer to the garden, so we can make better use of the new chickens in the garden (when we get some). Locating it near the berry cage (in the current orchard area) and including a gate would allow us to have the chickens roam this area in the non-fruit season to manage grass and pests. It would also put the coop closer to the house, and right nest to a tap for convenient water top-ups.

So... we made the decision to remove all of the trees, apart from the two plums. One apricot is still in the ground, as it was too big to easily remove with large pruners (yes, the trees were THAT spindly), but it will go. The posts and wires are still up, but they will be removed in the next few weeks, and I will start training the plums to be "all round" trees, rather than fan trained. We live in an orchard area so we have access to cheap, local fruit so we will just continue to support our local economy by buying what we want when it is in season, and preserving our favorites to enjoy at other times.

 On the bright side, however, the rhubarb seems to be quite happy!

You win some, you lose some.

DIY sultanas

Last month we harvested almost 15kg of grapes. Far too many to eat, too many to just turn into jelly, and we don't drink much grape juice (unless it is the alcoholic variety!). What to do? I decided to get out the dehydrator and try making sultanas.

I craqzed the grapes briefly (dip in very hot water) to crack the skins to assist in the dehydrating process, then left them in the dehydrator for about 24 hours (some a bit longer - probably didn't craze as well). We ended up with three decent sized jars of rather tasty home made sultanas. Slightly tarter than the shop bought variety, although th egreen grapes were sweeter than the red ones. Perfect for the winter porridge season!

Is it April already?

How did that happen? It doesn't feel like more than a month since I last posted...but if it's any consolation you haven't missed much!

I thought I'd get back in to the swing of things with some garden updates. After 10 weeks away last winter/spring, and uni and work over summer the garden is really in a "state" (to put it mildly). Thank goodness for berries and the peach tree so the harvest season hasn't been a complete bust. The tomatoes were an epic fail this year, other than the self seeded cherries and tommy toes, which just keep on keeping on. I have had small successes with a couple of chilli plants, the eggplants were a waste of time, but the parsley and basil varieties have been outstanding.

Many locals have reported poor tomato crops this year, probably due to the late start to summer and a few cold snaps in November. As for the rest I'm not sure why - this year I bought seedlings rather than started from seed, and it is tempting to blame that, but who knows. Berries have been the hero crops this year - around 35kg of them. However I must put in a mention for the peach tree I was going to pull out 18 months ago. I cut it right back to 3 "stump" branches, but it wasn't going to give up without a fight. It surged back, and this year we harvested 17kg of the most gorgeous peaches - some up to 350g. Needless to stay its survival is now assured.

The garlic did very well again, and I have enough bulbs to eat, as well as to plant out for the next crop.

Updated garden pics to come in the next post

Yes, I still have a garden!

But it is going to be a lot smaller this year, as we were away until October so missed the main tomato/chilli/eggplant/capsicum seedling raising months. I did buy some plants at a local charity market, but not as many as I would normally grow from seed. It feels really weird to only have one bed of tomato plants!

I will probably only have about half of the beds in production this year for several reasons

• work plus study means I have to scale back my garden ambitions
• it will take a few more months to weed and rejuvenate some of the other beds
• we are planning to move a few things around in the autumn, and redo the fruit cage so I'm deliberately not doing anything with some of the beds

To fill in the gap we're getting a weekly organic veg box again this year from a local CSA (community supported agriculture) family farm about 10k away. Can't argue with those food miles!

This overgrown mess is what almost all the beds looked like when we came back from holidays...although the garlic beds were looking in better shape!

New plantings - eggplant, chilli and capsicum, and lettuce and basil, with a few sugar snap pea seeds that hopefully will germinate soon.

The tomato cages are back in use again. This year I have planted tommy toe, black russian, mortgage lifter, another beefsteak variety, and two paste type tomatoes whose exotic names I can't remember!

Cucumber, herbs and a zucchini. On the right is the red table grape - this is the best it has ever looked in 5 years, and it has loads of fruit on it.

 

In spite of some curly leaf (I wasn't around to spray in time), the veg patch yellow peach tree is laden with fruit. Lovely! The other white peach in the mini-orchard is far less impressive. To the right are the raspberries and brambleberries - both promise to give us a good few months of berry delights.

 

Quick catch up

Once again apologies for the long time between posts, but between work, work and uni there hasn't been much time for fun stuff like blogging. Also, as I didn't really grow much this season there hasn't been an endless supply of produce and recipes to blog about.

My staples of tomatoes and garlic have been very successful. I harvested over 200 garlic bulbs, and I've been dehydrating some and making my own garlic powder before it all starts to sprout. It's really easy, and smells amazing. Hopefully that will carry us through the "garlic gap"  between harvests.

We're still picking tomatoes, although with the first hard frost predicted this weekend there probably aren't many more to go. So far I've eaten, bottled, pureed and chutneyed my way through 114 kilos. From about 26 plants. I lost probably another 5-6 kilos at least to blossom end rot. Mostly Romas, which I've never done well with. Next year I think I will concentrate on amish paste / oxheart for bottling, as they just keep on keeping on, seem more resistant to problems like end rot and taste lovely. I had a few plants of beefsteak tomatoes that did well and they were just divine eating, so I will grow them again too.

I have about 50 bottles of passata / diced tomatoes. Not as many as I would like, but I can make them stretch I hope! So far I've made 30 jars of green tomato chutney - and that only used up 7kg of green tomatoes, so there's still more chutney to make.

It's been a good year for chillies as well - those plants that survived the attack of the bower birds. I've harvested about 2kg, and dried they will keep me in chilli powder for at least a year.

I have also just picked a few of the random pumpkins that grew out of the mulched up vegetable scraps we got from the green grocer. No idea what they are but they look tasty. I grew a few butternuts this year, but they fell prey to possums before I could net them.

The raspberries are still going, but again I don't think there will be many more to pick. We've harvested just over 8kg this season. I've made jam, muffins, raspberry vinegar and also frozen a lot for muffins. We've also had raspberries with breakfast almost every day for the last 3 months. The strategy of planting early, mid and late varieties has worked well again this year, with raspberries available for eating from early December until now, mid May. The flavour of the early ones is the best to me, with a delicate perfume that the late varieties can't match, but they are all lovely compared to the shop bought options.

Once semester finishes in a few weeks I'll be getting back into the garden for a major tidy-up and mulching for winter.

This one's for you Jason!

Jason's comment on the last post gave me the perfect opportunity to make another chart - and I didn't even pay him :-)

He asked how the 2011/12 season compared to last year - et voila! Last year we had about 261kg (of the things I counted), and this year is 189kg so far, but I did harvest at least 5 kilos of yacon on the weekend, and the oca is still in the ground. However, in spite of that I don't think we'll get too much closer to last year's harvest total. For those who are interested the 09/10 season total was 268kg (167kg accounted for by tomatoes!).

The main reasons this year's harvest is smaller, in no particular order

• The birds ate most of the apple crop, which wasn't as abundant as last year on the main tree
• I planted half the number of tomato plants - although interestingly they were almost as productive - I think this is due to the cages we used rather than traditional staking
• The brambleberries had a significant haircut last year, and as they produce on last year's growth we knew we wouldn't' have many this year. Ditto redcurrants which I think were down due to over-zealous pruning
• I was a pumpkin failure (again) this year
• The damp summer wasn't good for the courgettes

However, the value of what we've grown this season is over $3,000 - which is a pretty satisfying saving all round!

Saving over $2k without even realising it

Wow. Sometimes it really does pay to pause and reflect. Over the weekend I updated my harvest tally for the  2011-12 season, and came to the staggering conclusion that even this early into the season we have grown over $2000 worth for fruit and veg!! I have weighed recorded almost everything we grow (minus what I eat in the garden , and herbs and leafy greens). On Sunday I did some online research and put per kg prices for the equivalent organic item next to everything and added it up - $2047. And that's probably a bit higher as I didn't weigh or include all the lemons and limes.

Crikey!

Now, the bulk of that - a staggering $1450 - was for the berries and currants - which have an average organic retail price of $52 per kilo  (assuming you can even get them - and I suspect the redcurrants and blackcurrants would be more as they are harder to pick)

It really is quite sobering to see how much all that produce is worth - we tend to take it for granted a bit. In  some ways it is a paper only saving - we'd never actually spend that much on berries if we had to buy them - we'd just be going without. But either way, it has been an interesting exercise.

Fruity weekend

Our peach tree has been dropping almost ripe fruit for the last week or so. Rather than waste it I decided to make a batch of chutney. I chose a recipe from the Ball complete book of home preserving - Caribbean peach chutney. It smells pretty good!

 

Our neighbours down the road as usual have too many damson plums this year - so while Jerry enjoyed a refreshing dip after a hot day, I picked 2 buckets of fruit. Today it's cooler and raining, so out with the steam juicer and to work. 1 bucket gave almost 6 litres of juice. I've used 2.4 L to make jelly (9 jars) and the rest I'll preserve in the fowlers for more cordial or jam making later in the year. I'm in the process of juicing the rest

Next week my uni course starts - so I'll be working part time, gardening and preserving the harvest part time, studying part time and looking after Jerry (full time!!). So needless to say my idea of doing the weekly independence day challenge has fallen by the wayside!! I have no aspirations to be superwoman :-). I'm already thinking of dropping back to just one subject this session to ease myself back into study. After all, the tomatoes and fruit won't wait until I have time to do bottling.

I hope you've all had a good weekend

Apricots stewed in lemon verbena tea

We only managed to pick 800g of apricots this year - disappointing, particularly as we have 2 trees (one didn't fruit at all). So the ones we did pick deserved something special.

Out with Nigel Slater's Tender part 2 (fruit), and he didn't disappoint, with this gorgeous recipe:

• Make a tea with a handful of lemon verbena leaves, 2-3 tablespoons of sugar and 750 ml of water. Let it steep for 3-5 mins then strain out the leaves
• Halve apricots (recipe says 500g but I used 800 and it was fine) discard stones and put in an oven dish
• Pour over tea, and add in the vanilla pod (the recipe also called for a star anise but I'm not keen on the flavour so left it out
• Bake for about 40 mins at 180c
• Cool (although I can't see any reason not to eat them warm with some custard and a drizzle of the verbena 'tea')

Heaven.

Preserving p*rn

Blackcurrant cordial, strawberry balsamic vinegar, blackcurrants in syrup, and blackcurrant jam to be.

Sweet pickled cherries to be

Redcurrants

2.9 kg from 4/5 of one bush ... And still another one to pick. Still have some in freezer from last year and about 10 jars of assorted redcurrant jellies. Have offered some to neighbours, but if they aren't interested then I guess I'll make a big batch of pectin stock. Waste not want not and all that :-)

Fruit to be

 The peach tree in the veg patch is laden with fruit this year, in spite of a bit of curly leaf, and there are a few nectarines in the orchard as well.

The brambleberries have had a radical haircut so won't be incredibly productive this year, but they are flowering happily, As usual it's raspberry city (foreground)

 Red and black currants are looking good again this year

The mariposa plum is laden - although not as laden as it used to be - I didn't realise the chickens would eat off the green fruit at this stage. Oh well, live and learn. The 3 rhubarb patches are kicking along nicely and showing no signs of transplant stress

 This apricot tree doesn't look very inspiring, but there's plenty of fruit!

Drowning in citrus...

Our lemon and lime trees are groaning with their second crop of citrus for the year - must be all that rain. So this weekend I will be making pickle and marmalade...and then a bit more marmalade.

I started the lime pickle tonight, but there are still enough limes in the basked for a couple of batches of marmalade.....and plenty more on the tree! 1kg of limes makes about 10 jars of marmalade.

I couldn't resist buying a couple of kilos of Seville oranges in the greengrocer's. They make the best marmalade, so I will be whipping up a batch of whiskey Seville marmalade this weekend. This afternoon one of our friends dropped by with a huge bag of tangelos and some mandarins and lemonade lemons. So that's the juice and snacks taken care of.

 These are 7 year bean seeds (scarlet runner beans) - aren't they pretty? Anyone want some?

What are your kitchen plans for the weekend?