Visit Valerie L March 2019

On Sunday 24 February our group visited Valerie's garden at Howden.  We were lucky that the weather was sunny and mild, because there had been rain the previous day, and it became cold and windy the day after.

In the photo above Valerie welcomed the large crowd that turned up.  Valerie's garden had many interesting crops, and the photos below show just some of them.

These very prolific Roma-style tomato bushes caught my eye.  Fingers crossed that warm weather will continue for a bit, and all tomatoes will ripen.

The corn was doing extremely well, and the melon bushes below also looked great, but Valerie was not sure the melons would ripen.  They seemed rather slow to do so.  Could this be because the weather has been a lot cooler lately?

Valerie showed us her three worm farms positioned in the shade of some large trees. In the photo below she poured some juicy brown liquid.  Valerie's plants love worm juice!

Every worm farm tower consist of three containers.  In the photo below Valerie showed us what she puts in the top one.  Paper mixed in with veggie scraps is really no problem for the worms.  

Valerie told us that the worms are good at keeping the secrets contained in bits of paper that she would not want to end up on the tip.  The photo below shows the second layer after four weeks - the worms consume it all.

In the end she uses the content of the bottom layer, and that container then goes to the top where it is then filled with new scraps.

In another part of the garden we looked at a long row of hazelnut trees. Valerie planted five varieties of hazelnut here.  The group had a spontaneous discussion on the subject, and it emerged that hazelnut trees produce best if you have more than one tree, and more than one variety.  Mandy quickly googled that there are nurseries that sell hazelnut trees in bundles of five varieties, because that seems to give the best results.

The photo below shows some of the delicious hazelnuts that Valerie's trees produce.  Valerie commented that most commercial producers prune in such a way that there is just one main stem.  People commented that she could still do this with her hazelnut bushes.  Valerie is going to prune them this winter.

Valerie had quite a few sprawling many-meters-long pumpkin bushes, all with large pumpkins.  She told us that the most successful ones are all volunteers that were allowed to stay where they chose to come up.  She is not sure what variety they are.  The monster bushes and fruits all looked like in the photo below.  They are not Queensland Blue, but ..

In my garden I have some small dainty Chilean Guava bushes with a few berries.  I could not believe the size of the bush that Valerie has.  It was covered in very nice tasting red berries.  Some of us went home with a few cuttings in the hope they will take root.

Everyone had wonderful time.  A few people commented on Valerie's generosity in giving away cuttings and plants out of her garden.

The produce table was laden. And morning tea had many delicious contributions that I did not get a chance to taste because 'whoosh and they were gone'.

Many thanks to Valerie for providing us with a very enjoyable and informative morning.  It was enjoyed by all who came! And thanks to all those who came, for their conversational, morning tea and produce-table contributions!