In My Garden - Max - January 2022

Ten photos in my garden in the middle of summer should be easy peasy, but summer 2021 - 2022 has been one plagued by too much rain and too little sun, so I won't be showing you ten success stories. 

Here are my ten photos:

Photo 1 - Cucumber Spacemaster

Photo number one is a good example of how sharing and exchanging works so well in the Food Garden Group.

Each summer I grow Lebanese cucumbers because they are reliable producers of cucumbers that are not bitter, but when I saw a cucumber named Spacemaster on the Produce Table at the November FGG food garden visit I decided to take it home because my garden is not large, and a variety that promises to be compact always attracts my attention.

The description I found on the internet said: This bush variety forms a neat and compact plant with high yields of tasty fruit. Taking up less space than more traditional types, it is ideal for the smaller gardener and can even be grown successfully in tubs, pots and containers.

Well, the truly small plant produced its first ripe cucumber on 7 January, with a second and third already on their way. In comparison, my Lebanese cucumbers are flowering away, and will produce, but are very much behind.  We tasted our first Spacemaster and really liked the non-bitter taste, so whoever put this plant on the Produce Table Thank you, learnt something here, I will grow these again!

PS: please note the wooden plank under the cucumber to keep it off the ground, so it does not rot!

Photo 2 - our Fordhook Giant tree

We have a new tree in our garden: it is a silverbeet Fordhook Giant tree! Silverbeet is a plant that is basically bi-annual. In its first year after sowing it produces ample juicy leaves, but nothing else. Then, in its second year it produces a strong stem, and thousands of very insignificant flowers, and many many seeds. We have had the Fordhook Giant variety of silverbeet in our garden for many years and allow it to self-sow. We then remove seedlings where we don't want them.

This Fordhook Giant plant must be particularly happy because it has grown to a height of three metres in the last three months.  My partner Gaye wants me to remove it because it takes up too much space and will produce too much seed, but I have resisted this so far, because I just love these giants of our food garden.

Photo 3 - aphid attack

There was a day at the end of October when I looked out of the window and thought that the foliage of our ANZAC peach tree suddenly had gone a much duller green.  This was after one of the periods of heavy rain and high humidity.  I found that the tree was absolutely covered in aphids.  

I thoroughly sprayed the whole tree with soapy water (dishwash liquid), and repeated this three days later, and then again three days after that. That did the trick: all aphids died! Nearly all leaves died as well. All its peaches fell to the ground.

I feared that the tree might die, but no, as you can see in the photo taken just a week or so later, new growth emerged.

Since then new growth has truly exploded: many new branches have formed and the tree is now a sea of green leaves.  Peach trees form fruit on last season's new growth, so peaches will be formed on these new branches next season, and the tree will have far too many fruits if I don't do something about this. Too much fruit means that branches will bend down and possibly break.  Too much fruit will mean that the tree will needt to feed too many fruits, and they will all remain small.

I will need to drastically thin the branches on this tree. Stonefruit trees are best pruned just after fruit has been picked and before the tree goes dormant for winter (see Quick Guide to Pruning Fruit Trees on the FGG blog). If I thin the tree now, it may be too early and the tree may form more new branches before the season is over. The best time to prune it will be March, I reckon.

Photo 4 - pheromone trap for Codling Moth

Grubs of the Codling Moth make holes in young apples, make an apple their home, and then eat as much apple as they can. I try to keep Codling Moth away from my apples in two ways: 

I hang half Coke bottles filled with Port (the sweet alcoholic drink) in my trees (the moths love this and drown - thank you, Kate F, for suggesting this some years ago). 

I also use pheromone lures.  The little plastic tube you see in the photo contains the lure. The moths approach and get stuck on the sticky glue surface around the lure. I buy the lures from Bugs for Bugs. The sticky surfaces I buy at Bunnings. Find out more about this in FGG blog post Outsmarting the codling moth. 

Photo 5: re-sprouting Russian Kale

We have silverbeet, coriander, miners lettuce, kale and parsley in our garden as self-sown food plants.    It is really important to have flowers in your food garden too. We allow Aquilegia, Nasturtiums, Marigolds and Poppies to self sow.  Looks great, costs nothing, and it is easy! 

The stems in the photo above belong to a Russian Kale that I allowed to go to seed. I then removed the seed heads when it all became too unwieldy, thinking that I would remove the rest of the plant later. 

Before I could do that the Kale re-sprouted, and we will now happily eat the regrowths on the old stems.   I recently visited a garden and was shown a four-year-old Kale that was still contributing leaves to stir-fries and so on, so this is truly an option for lazy gardeners. Most people, though, will prefer new young plants that produce more leaves and juicier leaves.

Photo 6: young bush beans

I took the photo of these bush beans this morning (8th of January). As you can see the bushes are still quite small. That is because I only sowed the beans on 12 December. That is a bit late, but not too late. I have done this before.  I hope to have beans in March/April. I put waste baskets over the young plants because our local Blackbirds would scratch this whole bed into chaos and destroy the young plants. At the end of the season I will keep some beans on the bushes and let them grow large.  These beans are the ones I will keep for seed for next season. I have done this for too many years to remember what the exact name of the variety is.

Photo 7: protecting my figs

There is so much happening in our garden at this time of year that I often forget to cover my figs.  We have three small fig trees, and in past years the birds often got them as summer treats.  Not this year hopefully!  

Rather than covering the whole tree, which can be difficult, I put exclusion bags around them. You can buy them online, but really any bag that allows ventilation is fine.  Following this small number of summer figs, there is often a second larger fig crop at the end of the season.

Photo 8: my hothouse on 8Jan22

It is not a good tomato year, for the second year in a row, not even in my hothouse! I have had 3 ripe tomatoes so far, with plenty more coming, as you see, but that is a lot less than in a sunny summer. Plants have suffered from not enough sun.  My outside tomatoes look lush and green, but are not anywhere near producing a ripe tomato. Ah well, you can't win them all.

Photo 9: our raspberries love water and have done well this season

Berries, on the other hand, have done well in our garden this season, due to all the rain.  We have picked 9 kilograms of raspberries so far. We don't weigh anything else we pick in the garden, but raspberries we weigh every time we pick them, just to see how this year compares with previous years.  

Our maximum picked from our large raspberry patch (10 metres x 2 metres heavily planted) was 11 kilograms in 2017. This season, so far, it has been 9 kilograms.  Our first raspberries were ripe almost 3 weeks later than in previous years, which was good in a way, because it meant we had plenty of fresh raspberries for Christmas lunch.  

Normally picking has finished by now, but this year it still continues. If you would like to know how this raspberry patch was constructed and what we do to it every year to keep our crop coming read Making the most of my raspberries on the FGG blog.

Our blueberries were never a great success, and a couple of years ago I began to realise why.  Behind the blueberry area is a large Rhododendrum and its roots greedily took away whatever I added to the blueberry patch.  Blueberries are also not very good with root competition, so that is why this area was always under-performing.  

So last winter I spent quite a bit of time digging a deep trench behind the blueberries. I removed all the Rhodo roots that were intruding (some of them were really thick roots), and then put in the ground a long sheet of galvanised iron (see photo below). The photo was taken just after doing this in July.

Photo 10: our raspberry patch after installing a tree root barrier

All blueberry bushes are now for the first time in years growing well.  This area might now finally be a success in coming years!

Photo 11 - bonus photo - our blueberry area in January 2022

That's 10 photos + comments from me. That went quick!  I enjoyed doing this.  I hope you enjoyed reading it.

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If you are a member of our group and would be happy to share wit us ten photos taken in your garden please let us know via foodgardengroup@gmail.com .  

We will put photos + your texts on this blog for you, at a time that suits you and the FGG person who coordinates this with you.  

No need to say as much as I said about each photo. Just say what would you would say to a visitor to your garden.

Happy food gardening!

Max Bee