In My Garden - Karen - January 2022

 In My Garden - Karen - January 2022

Karen's garden in New Town is a delight to wander through at any time of the year. We last visited her in October 2020. You can see that visit here: Garden visit Karen 2020

Join Karen on a walk through her garden now to see what is going on there at the moment.

When we first moved into the house over 20 years ago, the garden was covered in concrete and builders rubble until 2006 when soil preparation started. Usable garden space from the verandah to fences is 12M x 22M with a central vegie bed, a block of fruit along the North side, on the South and West are fruit trees with flowers under.

All fruiting plants are given an annual dose of sheep manure except for berries which get given a second dose. Once a year the whole garden is mulched with thick pea straw. Vegies sometimes receive a second lighter mulch to keep weeds down.

Burgundy spray is used on stone fruit and Success Ultra was tried successfully on pomes and cherry this year. 

Here you can see the Cherry espalier viewed from above. We are growing the cherry varieties "Lapin" and "Stella". Recommendations for spacing of horizontal wires is 30-40cm. Ours are spaced at 35cm which has reduced fungal problems on clustered bunches of fruit cherries. 

We used "Success Ultra"  for the first time. Recommended at 14 day intervals this shows good control of Pear and Cherry Slug at 3 weeks intervals. Success Ultra at 3 week intervals has not controlled Codling Moth though. (writer's note: please be aware that Success Ultra is highly toxic to bees, so perhaps don't use it when you have bees visiting your garden.)

In 2020 I ran out of time to prune and this year's 11.9kg Cherry harvest is the best yet. Picking every 3-5 days staggered harvest over a few weeks. Fruit was 1st quality which friends and neighbours enjoyed with only 750g second quality being made into Cherry Ginger Sauce.

Along the fence line are espaliered Gages and Almonds with Black and Red Currants planted about 0.8 metres in front. The netting system is supported by PVC.

This is how we manage the netting:

• Old trampoline supports are left in ground year round
• PVC pipe 1.8M with PVC "T" or "elbow" joints are fitted to one end. These slip over the metal post
• Lengths of PVC slot into joints, joining the supports together. 
• Black netting is thrown over espalier wire and PVC
• Floppy netting is a danger to birds so it is held down firmly to the ground to make it taut. 
• Netting and PVC is stored when not needed.

A few hot days I forgot to water which ruined the blueberry fruit and burned the leaves.

Missed the summer prune last year. The hard winter prune to reduce height resulted in 1+M Spring growth on Apple (left) and Pear (right). This year I'll summer prune to shape. The lowered height will make fruit easy to pick standing.

At 14 years the apricot "Moore Park" is starting to struggle with branches dying back from gummosis. It was intentionally pruned hard in winter to produce lots of long lower growth. As expected this has reduced the crop to only a handful of apricots this time. Looking forward to better fruiting next year after a good summer prune.

Didn't get into the vegies in spring but self sown spinach, swiss chard and spring onions have kept us going.

Interspersed among the fruit are a few "plant and forget" flowering plants which are big on impact and small on maintenance apart from the annual pea straw mulch.

And last but not least: we are fortunate to have a very old "tasty" cherry plum which makes a stunning jam with walnuts added.