The Guava Bush

A few years ago I had my interest in Guavas rekindled, when a dear old lady I know invited my wife and I to raid her guava tree. We turned it into jam and it was absolutely beautiful and well worth the effort. She had a huge tree and much of the fruit was just rotting on the ground.

Since then we decided to grow a tree of our own, although finding a suitable spot for it was a challenge. The tree we put in is now about a metre high and seems to be liking where I put it. It's north facing so it gets a bit of sun but it also gets a bit of shade from surrounding trees (especially in the winter months when the suns lower). If it grows to the size the old lady's tree was we could be in trouble, but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.

Anyway, it fruited for the first time this year (around March).

We probably got about 2 cups of fruit off it so it'll be a while before we're getting enough to make jam. The darker coloured ones were beautifully sweet. The red ones were still a bit sour, but not bad considering it's the first season of fruit. 

I'm picking this new addition will attract more birds to the garden. Anyway, I really like having something to nibble on when wandering through the garden. It brings back a lot of childhood memories for me.

Year 2

After the tree finished fruiting I kind of forgot all about it, so when it fruited again this year it was a nice little treat to pick off some of the darkened fruit which were a bit less tarty than last year. There was a bit more fruit than last year and they seemed a little bigger too, perhaps because of all the rain we’ve been having. In fact some of the fruit had split because of too much water around the time they ripened. 

My wife’s been juicing quite a few things from the garden this year. So she threw a few guavas in each time she made some juice, which added a nice flavour. It could be a few years before we have enough to make jam.

The Orange Tree

During the colder months it's the citrus trees that spring into life. In addition to adding some much needed colour to the garden, it's great to be able to pick fresh fruit over the winter. The fruit on this tree is not sweet enough to eat until we get a few good frosts, until then they're still quite sour.
This tree was already mature when we bought the property more than 20 years ago so I estimate that it's more than 30 years old.

The tree itself is not much to look at for most of the year, until the winter. This probably explains why I've not given it the attention it needs over the years. I don't like using chemicals and sprays if I can help it but this year I decided to spray all my fruit trees with copper as some were showing signs of disease including this orange.

Several years ago when I decided to landscape this area I had to hack into its roots quite severely to put the steps in, which caused it to suffer a bit, but I think it's bounced back now.

Izumi uses the oranges quite a bit in salads as shown in my post about Florence Fennel

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Update October 2018.

Last year the orange tree didn't produce many flowers and hardly any fruit. So, I decided it was time to give it some attention and look after it properly. So I gave it a generous feed of granular citrus food which I spread around the drip line in the Autumn and another spray of copper over the winter which I haven't done for a few years. I did the same thing to a few other citrus and fruiting trees in the garden while I was about it.

The results have been very encouraging! The tree is now covered in flowers and looking much healthier than it was, which bodes well for next seasons crop of oranges. As a bonus the orange tree in recent weeks has played host to regular visits from the NZ native Tui, who come to feed on the nectar.

Come to think of it, I’ve seen more Tuis in the garden this year than I can remember for a while. I must be doing something right. 

A Wood Pigeon comes for a visit

One of the more privileged sights for bird watchers in New Zealand is that of the Native NZ Wood Pigeon. (Also known as Kereru which is the Maori name) The Wood pigeon would have to be the biggest bird to ever visit my garden. According to Wikipedia, they can grow to be 55cm long (20 inches) from head to tail weighing up to 850grams (1.87 pounds). When you witness one up close they seem much bigger. They're often seen gorging themselves on tree borne berries. This shot was taken in a tree privot outside our kitchen window. (In NZ Privot is classified as a noxious weed and at this time of year they're covered in berries.)

The first time I witnessed a wood pigeon landing in Loquat tree (which is one of their favourites), I swore the branch was nearly going to snap under its weight. They can be quite comical to watch after they get a belly full of berries. Not only are they weighed down all the more from pigging-out on all the fruit but as the fruit ferments in their gut they become intoxicated and have difficulty getting air borne again.

But when they do it's a spectacular sight. If you're ever standing nearby, the "Wooshing" sound they make when they take to flight is quite breathtaking. You can't help but marvel at these beautiful creatures. And then he was gone...

This photo taken by Michelle from Christchurch 

shows off the beauty of this birds' paua shell colouring...

I really must get myself a decent camera!

Tiger Finches in the Garden

One thing I really love about my garden is all the birds that come visiting. Unfortunately I've never got my camera handy at the opportune moment when I suddenly find myself up close and personal with some of these birds. I've only got an average camera so I can't zoom in very well or catch anything that's moving too fast, but I am quite pleased with this shot that I managed to get of a Tiger Finch in mid flight...

It's only at certain times of the year when the Tiger Finches come around. They seem to travel in pairs and I managed to get a shot of them together (below), apparently feeding on the seeds of these flowers. The most common place to view Tiger Finches in New Zealand is in a cage at the local pet shop, so it was quite a privilege to see them in their natural environment and to get a shot of them.

Garden Tour (Winter Projects)

Now that I've finally figured out how to add a video to my blog I thought I'd take you on a tour of the garden to show you a few of the jobs I've got planned over the next few months.

Growing Grapes

I've been meaning for some time to do a post about my grapes. This is the second year since I planted my vine which is called Albany Surprise – a red variety. The season is over now but I have carefully observed the grapes throughout the season so I could report on how it did. 

As with all my fruit trees, from the moment the first buds start sprouting there's a keen sense of anticipation about the fruit it will yield. 

Last year I was advised by a commercial grape grower to pinch out all the fruit so that the roots would have a chance to get really well established. This I reluctantly did, but I wasn't too happy to hear them recommend I pinch out at least half the fruit this year. I was hoping for a bumper crop but as I've learned, patience is a much needed virtue when it comes to growing any type of fruit — so I complied with their instructions...

...but not before I at least got to see how much the vine could grow.

Watching the tiny bunches unfurl seemed almost miraculous — it's the first time I've ever observed it so closely. Everything seemed so perfectly formed.

Shortly after this it started flowering, which is when the bees arrived to do their thing. Of course grapes need pollenating like every other fruit in the garden.

Meanwhile, I was keeping an eye on how the vine was growing as a whole as I wanted it to grow over the pergola I built last year. I strung some wire between the uprights then tied the vine to the wire.

Then the fruit started growing although rather unevenly. It looked like I was going to get some weird shaped bunches.

But before long the bunches started forming nicely...

...then ripened up to a nice dark red colour.

It wasn't a huge crop because I had to cut half of the fruit off, but I'm sure it will pay off later as the vine gets established. Some of the fruit was a bit sour and the bunches didn't ripen up evenly so I found myself picking at grapes off the vine rather than picking whole bunches of ripened grapes. 

But it didn't matter, I was happy enough with seeing and tasting the first fruits this year. 

Now I'm looking forward to seeing how it does next year.

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Picture taken December 2012...

The grape season (2012-13) seemed promising to begin with. Unfortunately most of my fruit shrivelled up on the vine. I thought grapes liked long hot summers. I understand grape growers throughout NZ had a good season. We had a drought this year. Perhaps I should have watered them more...

Potato Crop Failure

As mentioned in my previous post about sweet potatoes (kumaras), my attempt at growing ordinary potatoes this year was a bit of a failure. I am trying to view it more positively and as an opportunity to learn something but I must say I'm a bit stumped as to where I went wrong... 

I had a great year for potatoes last year in this same general spot where I grew these so I'm satisfied that potatoes can grow here. They get sufficient sun and I watered them just as well as last year. If anything's different this year it would be the soil, so I'm picking that's where the problem is. But I'm still not sure what I did wrong. This is what I did...

First I dug in heaps of compost into my new garden (mixing it in well), then after marking where I would grow my rows of spuds I dug a few trenches and planted the seed potatoes at a depth of about 20cm (8 inches). I covered the seeds with about an inch or 2 of soil to which I'd added some 'potato food' fertiliser. As they started to sprout I kept adding the soil mounding it over the new growth until eventually the soil was mounded up about 20cm above the original ground level. I made sure it was watered regularly.

I grew 2 different varieties in 2 separate locations (although I mixed them up). There were 32 seed potatoes in total but I got less than 5kg of spuds from the whole crop which was very disappointing. 

To all appearances the spuds seemed to be doing well (at least above ground) and I'm thinking that might be a clue to where I went wrong. Perhaps there was too much nitrogen causing all the growth to happen above ground instead of below. I was kind of relying on the potato food fertiliser to make sure it had the right mix of nutrients but perhaps the soil was already high in nitrogen. 

I'd be interested to hear any tips anyone can give me...