In My Garden - Cathy July 2020

In My Garden - Cathy - July 2020

Mid-winter can be a busy time in the garden, even though everything seems to have slowed right down. There is pruning to be taken care of, the planting of bare-rooted fruit trees, preparing and changing over of beds, re-potting and for those of us lucky enough to have a glass house, there might even still be some fruit to harvest! Cathy and Ward’s garden in North Hobart has all those things going on, and then some! Cathy takes us on a ramble through her winter garden.

Here we are in the depth of a Tasmanian winter and the brassicas are loving it. I have been growing Brussels sprouts since a member of this group revealed the secrets (sow seeds and get the plants in by December). This year I am trying ‘Long Island Improved’ and enjoying the beauty of the foliage with the hints of pink.  

    

Kohlrabi ‘Superschmeltz’ are looking good - I eat them as a salad vegetable. I am told you can cut them in half, and they will heal over for later harvest (much like long cucumbers). 

We finally gave up on the old Feijoa in the front garden. The Feijoa pre-dated us and flowered much later than most. I was never able to find someone with a bush flowering at the same time to see if cross pollination would work. We have replaced it with a Stella cherry.

We have bought two blueberries to go in a space being prepared with leaf mould, coffee grinds and a bag of very old peat from the potting shed. 

I enjoy growing plants from the fruit and veg shops.  The Rocotto chilli has been growing for many years and shrugs off the Tasmanian winter. 

The young non astringent persimmons seen here at the bottom of the standard bay tree are from fruit I bought at A One fruit market a couple of years ago (I have not had any with seed since). I will grow them on and if they do not fruit when they get to a reasonable size, I will put a graft onto them from the Fuyu persimmon, which fruited very well this year.

This year I started off some turmeric – it took from spring 2019 to a couple of months ago to show any sign of life - hoping to grow on to better things this year. I have recently purchased oca from Hill Street to sow this year. Our best Jerusalem artichoke, big beautiful purple tubers, came from the Huonville butcher shop many years ago.

Adventures with Florence Fennel. A garden writer recommended growing Florence as a perennial vegetable which she has done for many years. This is the third season for mine and I have some very healthy bulbs. Once harvested I will let them go to seed for collection. Some have self-sown in an adjacent bed and these I will thin and feed in hope of more bulbs to harvest. One has self-seeded in the patio and I have let it grow because I enjoyed the feathery foliage through the patio windows. I have cut it down since and am now playing with getting it to form bulbs (inspired by the videos that went around on the internet of people appearing to grow vegetables in paved areas). 

I love the giant red mustard in the photo with the seedlings – it self-seeds happily around the garden and provides drama and colour from now into spring. It then runs up to flowers (enjoyed by the bees) and then seeds which the birds (particularly finches) enjoy until I am left with tall dry stalks to throw in the compost. I could harvest the seed but then the birds would be deprived.

We are trying to stagger the broad bean plantings this year.

My Tamarillo is sown from seeds of a fruit from the produce table (inspired by a visit to a member’s garden in Lower Jordan Hill road where her seed-sown tamarillos were lush and tropical looking). Mine has been a martyr to aphids and fungus - seen here through the tracery of the pomegranate which has produced exactly one fruit last year and this - I live in hope. 

The strawberry guava is doing well this year - love to snack on them in the garden.  

This winter we pruned the Chinese gooseberry (Kiwifruit) back to a main framework - it was way out of control and had colonised the pear tree and next door as well. 

The black Genoa fig is also in the process of a severe haircut.  The Rose is  Rosa ‘Buff Beauty’, called lots of other uncomplimentary names by Ward during fig pruning - could be worse, it could be Mermaid.

The Eureka lemon powers along - I want to graft a grapefruit onto it (Vasilli just made a video on grafting citrus). If anyone has a good variety they would be willing to share some pencil thick cuttings from, I would love to hear from you😀. 

The mandarin in the courtyard is suffering with the cold but has set fruit. The Kaffir lime has perked up considerably after repotting. 

My finger limes are going into their third year - both had flowers last year and one set two fruits - so exciting!

In late February, some robust tomato seedlings came up in my potted-up cyclamen, from the worm castings added to the potting mix. I weeded them out, but they were so healthy and robust even with wrenching from the pots I decided to give them a go in the greenhouse after the summer crop. They are pretty miserable and leafless now but have set fruit and the cherry tomato is very tasty.

Finally, a look at the jalapeño chillies in the greenhouse which look to be a goer for this coming year.