Boo Hiss to Work

It is such a shame we have to go to work because there is so much to do in the garden.  I'm not wishing my life away but, roll on retirement.  I can't wait to have enough time to do what I want in the garden without cramming it into the weekend or a half hour snatched here or there from our evenings.  I'm pretty sure that R feels the same.  Especially when the garden has got away from us a wee bit.  As it has this year.

Just as well it's still the beginning of the year.  That gives us plenty of time to catch up with all that needs doing in the garden.  With that in mind, one Sunday not that long ago, when we had a fine day and some spare time on our hands, we managed to spend a good four hours in the garden.   We'd have preferred not to garden in 30-degree heat but, we slept in (oops) and the raspberry canes were starting to take over the shade house.  Something had to be done and we were the only ones around to do it.  

The previous owner of property grew vegetables in a very extensive hydroponic set up in the shade house.  He also grew the most amazing tasting raspberries and left us some canes so that we could keep on enjoying them.  That generous gift resulted in a great amount of excitement and a good deal of trepidation.  We've never grown raspberries and are basically, well, clueless.  I guess that's where the internet and reference books come in right.  We managed to glean enough knowledge to figure out how to prune the raspberries and divide them.  While we lost some of the original canes we successfully transplanted more and got some to grow from cuttings.  We doubled the number of canes.  Oh, well not quite doubled.  Some blackberries managed to sneak into the mix.  We'll be digging those out and planting them somewhere else.  In due course. 

Some of the raspberries, or perhaps the blackberries (it's difficult to tell) have made good headway to the edge of the shade house.  Alarmingly, a few had tunneled underneath and made good their escape. 

Others were making their way across the shade house.  No walking in bare feet for us.  Even sandals were risky! 

Things were getting out of hand.  They're supposed to grow up.  Not across. Of course, they do actually need something to grow up.  So, we gloved up and got stuck in. 

Like all good farmers, the previous owner used lots of blue baling twine on the property.  We've been gathering it up from all over the place.  Following M's example, this is what we used to create something for the raspberries to climb up.  My job was to unknot the string (which was in a right knotty mess as only baling twine can get) and R's was to tie it from a wire that was strung between two poles. Phew, that took a good hour alone.  Then it was a matter of twining the vines around the twine.  This is the end result.  Raspberries (or blackberries) growing in the right direction.  Up!

They are a little late ripening this year, but our hard work has been rewarded with some freshly picked raspberries.  Yum.

While we were stringing the raspberries, we kept hearing a scratchy scrabbling sound.  It took us a little while to figure out that it was coming from some of the hydroponic pipes which are stored on the ground.  This is what we found, not one but two blue tongue lizards. Stuck in the pipes.

Neither of the bobtails seemed particularly keen to get out of the pipes.  And they were clearly struggling to get any purchase on the slippery plastic.  It was such a hot day, and we were worried they'd die of heat stroke.  So, we tipped the pipes up and shook the bobtails out.  No mean feat given the pipes are 12 metres long and weigh several kilos.  But out they came.  And they didn't look at all appreciative.  I guess it's the bobtails that have been eating our strawberries and tomatoes.  Cheeky blighters.  It's lucky we don't mind sharing. Oh, and the pipes aren't on the ground anymore.

Speaking of tomatoes, I think we might have planted our seedlings too close together.  What we've ended up with is a veritable mess of tomato vines, several different types, all intertwined.   I was going to prune them all back, so the individual plants were more accessible for picking.  But I just couldn't do it.  They all had tomatoes happily ripening away on them.  So now what we do is shift the vines about the place so we can pick all the ripe tomatoes, including the ones hidden away.   They've only just started ripening in the last week or two, despite being planted in late Spring, but we've managed to pick six or seven kilos so far.  And, this is THE most amazing part of the story, R - committed disliker of raw tomato - has been eating them, straight from the vine.  Far out!!

Apart from tomatoes, we've been picking chilies, egg plants, lettuce, spring onions, capsicums (the second crop hasn't been eaten, thankfully) and the last of the cucumbers. Oh, and basil. 

Chilies and capsicums

Onions and basil

This is the flower of the eggplant.  Pretty huh.  The plants are now chest height and don't need any propping up despite the weight of the fruit.

  

We also picked the last of our summer fruit, a couple of dozen Golden Queen peaches.  I almost didn't get any photos of these.  We pretty much picked and ate the fruit straight from the tree (apart from a small number that Mum got to eat) as soon as it got ripe.  Those peaches were seriously yum.  

Overall we've been very happy with the produce from our summer garden.  It was such a relief to pick fruit and veg after we didn't pick a thing from our winter veg patch.  All that hard slog making garden beds in sticky clay has paid off.  Yay.

Hail and Rain

 This is what 24 milimetres of rain and hail in the space of two to three minutes looks like.

Yes, that is our path that looks like a river replete with waterfall.  It was a doozy of a storm.  Albeit a brief one!!

I hope the video works.  I've never posted one before.  I'm not going to tell you how long it took me to work out how to do it either!

Quinces

I don't think I'm exposing any secrets by telling you that my darling husband loves quince jelly, preferably on a slice of buttered, freshly baked sour dough or a freshly cooked crumpet.  I'm surprised he hasn't had it on his other love, ice-cream.   So, he was super excited when Mum and Dad gave him a quince tree one birthday.  Said tree was duly planted with so much love and tenderness it couldn't do anything but succeed.  And so it did, producing one or two quinces in it's very first year increasing to half a dozen in its fourth.  Not quite enough for quince jelly sadly but definitely enough to slow roast to have with ice-cream.  In it's fifth or sixth year though, the tree set at least two dozen quinces.  Which should have resulted in singing and dancing on darling husbands' part. If only that year wasn't the year we moved down to our patch of paradise, just a few months ahead of the fruit ripening. Oh dear. 

Needless to say, once we'd moved in and unpacked what seemed like a gazillion boxes, we began a mission to find a quince tree.  Do you think we could find one?  Not on your Nelly.  We searched every nursery within coo-ee of where we live, and a few beyond, without any luck.  R was on the point of giving up when, luck would have it, we decided to take Mum to visit a tree nursery near to where she lived.   Low and behold, hidden in the back row behind all of the other trees, looking very sad and neglected was a quince.  A very advanced, neglected sad specimen but a quince all the same. Mum and I  stood watch  - just in case there was someone else on the hunt for the elusive quince - while R went and found the owner to make the deal.   The owner was more than happy to sell the tree, which he didn't even know he had and gladly took the dosh from R's outstretched hand.  

With sold label duly applied, we chuffed off to get our ute.  The tree was never going to fit in the daily drive!!  We didn't expect we'd need a hand saw and a lot of hard graft to pick up the quince though.  The poor thing had been in situ so long it had taken root in the nursery.  Between three of us we finally managed to get it, and it's three dozen quinces, loaded into the back of the ute.  By the time we got home the poor thing was looking very wind burnt and sorry.  It was more luck than planning that made us leave it in the pot to recover for a month or so.  

Then came the next challenge, planting.  It was a huge effort to get the tree out of the pot.  When we did, we found the tap root was almost as thick as my wrist and it was curled in a lovely spiral, slinky style, around the pot.  We um'd and ah'd about what to do and finally decided to prune the tap root at the point where it started to curl.  We took off probably three quarters of the root before we finally put it into the ground.  We then gave it a goodly amount of Seasol and food and crossed our fingers.  It's fair to say, we weren't too hopeful that it would survive such a brutal transplanting.  But survive it did.  And this year, it produced fruit.  Yaaaaay.  

Here is our first ever quince.  The first of many, many more to come we hope.  R has lined up the empty jars in anticipation of them being filled with some lovely, deep pink jelly!! 

Not the most attractive of fruits it has to be said.  But three cheers to quinces and quince jelly so say I and R. 

Cucumbers

This summer we planted a space saving cucumber (well, three to be precise) in the hope we'd get cucumbers but still have plenty of room in the garden for other vegetables.  The vines pretty much took over the entire veg patch.  If that's what a space saving vine does, I'd hate to see one that isn't.  Apart from rampaging through the patch the vines have produced oodles of cucumbers of varying sizes, including the corker weighing in at more than a kilo below. 

I never imagined I'd be spending time writing about cucumbers, of all things. But here I am, writing a second post about the blighters.  Truly we've had so many cucumbers it's been difficult to know what to do with them all.  We've turned a fair amount into bread and butter pickles - which all future visitors will be encouraged to try.  We've had cucumbers in various forms in different salads and we've given a heap away. I draw the line at cucumber sandwiches. Not because I don't like cucumber sandwiches but because we're not eating much bread at the moment as we're trying to lose weight.  I'm certainly not going to sacrifice the bread I have on cucumber sandwiches when there is cheese, ham and tomato to be had. We are open to all idea's cucumber.  Please feel free to share. 

Oh... and we pulled two of the vines out to make room for other vegetables.  We probably should have just planted one in the first place. But I can't bring myself to discard a healthy seedling and couldn't find anyone to gift it too.  Note to self, find homes for veg seedlings in the future. 

Fish and Chips

We were lucky enough to have J stay with us for four a half days recently because her brother brought her down, so she didn't have to catch the bus.  One of the things we know J loves doing is having fish and chips or dinner.  So we took a drive into Bunbury and bought some fish and chips from Wollaston Fish and Chips.  As the weather was so lovely, we sat and ate them by Koombana bay.  The fish and chips were delicious.  They came wrapped in butchers' paper like they did when we were kids.   They stayed lovely and hot and crispy, unlike the ones that come in cardboard boxes which seems to be the trend these days.  The fish was blue groper and it was light and flaky and moist.  Overall it was a grand evening out.  

 J enjoying fish and chips by Koombana Bay.

The Veg Patch

Between birthday celebrations, trips to Perth, visiting friends, tendonitis, bursitis and a dodgy toe, we've not managed to get into the veg patch as much as we would like.   Except to pick endless cucumbers from our space saving cucumbers.  Which have in fact been running rampant all over the garden and growing through all of the vegetables along with some raspberry canes, weeds, volunteer tomatoes and dahlias.  Add to that burgeoning weeds and spent corn, and well, the veg patch was looking a mess.

I finally managed to get in amongst all for an hour while the lovely R mowed the grass and turned it into a lawn again.  We've now got two, lovely neat rows of lettuce. 

It was very satisfying to turn an untidy patch into something reasonably tidy.  But not nearly as satisfying as picking the first of the tomatoes at last (I thought we'd never get any at all) along with some Japanese egg plants, paprikas, a last flush of strawberries and one rather large spring onion (there are loads of those left too). Oh and more cucumbers.  There are endless, endless, endless cucumbers.  

Hopefully over the next couple of weekends we'll be able to get some garden beds prepared and ready to plant some winter veg seedlings.  Hopefully our winter veg patch will be as successful as the summer one has been. Or even more so.  

 

Another Visitor

We get lots of visits from various critters in our little patch of paradise.  Quite a lot of them choose to forsake our beautiful gardens in favour of the indoors.  Hopefully our most recent visitor won't do that!!  This is him.  Or possibly her.  I'm not sure.  He, or she, is a very large dugite.   The photos aren't the greatest but neither of us wanted to get close enough to get the snake's best side in the shot.  Even if he, or she, was chowing down on a baby rabbit. Which, by the way, is a spectacularly gruesome thing to see!!

This dugite has been hanging out near our verandah for quite a while.  So we thought we'd contact the local snake catcher to get it moved on.  I explained to the snake catcher that we had a large snake we believed was a dugite.  When I said it was munching on a rabbit, the snake catcher said that rabbits are way too big for dugites so it was very unlikely to be one.  I sent him the photos so he could check for himself.  His response was, "Oh my.  That is a very big dugite".  Turns out to be the biggest one he's seen for a while.  He promised to come out and catch it to relocate it elsewhere.  But he never turned up!! We've not seen the dugite for an age so hopefully he, or she, has chosen greener pastures somewhere a long, long, long way away from us.