catch up post: artichokes, bugs, evil birds and more...

I'm having a temporary break from having the internet at home, so for the next month or so I'll be doing fewer but longer blog posts from the uni library (this post is therefore sponsored by UTAS...).  Today, I have a mega stroll-around-the-vegie-garden-style post.  The baby birds that have been tweeting from the gutter right above my bedhead have finally grown up, and just like their parents they like to dig up all my (not cheap) sugar cane mulch and seedlings, eat my strawberries, and fly off with entire pea seedlings in their grubby beaks.  The other day, as I was netting my strawberries, there was a line of 3 birds watching me from the fence with their yellow eyes, occasionally sharpening their beaks on the palings, plotting their revenge...

Initially, sensing a growing threat from the birds as the blueberries grew bluer, the birds multiplied in my gutter, and the sheer cheek of a bird flying off with an entire seedling in its mouth, I bought some 'humming bird wire' from the hardware store (you can vaguely see it in the above photo - it's running above the white netting).  $17.95 for bird wire, with the capacity to cover my entire yard with ease vs $50 for bird netting? I reasoned that the wire was a better option.  I leapt around the backyard, foolishly triumphant as I hammered in posts and attached the wire to old stockings, designed to take some of the slack (on a side note, what do single men use for garden ties?).  However, the wire turned out to be a false economy.  The next morning I went outside, and three cheeky birds were doing the early shift, checking the strawberries for ripeness and sifting through the mulch for worms. My message: don't buy 'humming bird wire'.  Needless to say, I had to pay the hardware store another visit, returning home with a mass of surprisingly expensive netting.  So much for 'saving money' by growing your own vegies...

Anyone (including myself) who has sneered at my Fine Arts degree and wondered what in the hell I'll use a sculpture major for, should check out my strawberry construction.  It's titled Bird Net Over Strawberries and challenges the notion that art and functionality are mutually exclusive.  In all reality it's just a bodgy construction of bamboo stakes, gaffa tape, netting and old tent stakes, but it's holding up surprisingly well.  The bird wire can be seen in the below photo as well.

Bird Net Over Strawberries (2010), dimensions variable

On another triumphant note, my green artichokes are sprouting well.  The mothership looks fairly ready to eat, and the smaller side-flowers are just about there too.  My purple artichokes, mentioned in previous posts are just about gone.  I had stall at a market on Sunday, where I sold a number of them (along with rhubarb and silverbeet), and I suspect that the stocks are just about drained.  I wonder if the purple variety always flower before the green variety, or whether it's just because the green plant is slightly younger?

The Mothership

et al

I also had my first pea harvest (so peas don't grow in frozen packets?).  I picked a decent bowl of pods (after finally establishing which area I had planted the peas as opposed to the snowpeas - an argument for  naming seedlings as you plant), and bought 300g of prawns ready for a prawn and pea risotto.  Just as the rice was soaking up the wine, I remembered that I had to get the peas out of the pods, and got out a big bowl for the peas in anticipation.  I needn't have bothered.  There are SO FEW PEAS IN A POD! Who would have thought...  Oh and it seems that you can eat the pods too, as I gnawed on a few pods out of hunger as I was cooking, and, well, I'm not dead yet...

A not-quite-ready pea

It's not all stories of triumph:  I'm still having troubles with getting a decent head of broccoli. I've tried planting at different times of the year, fertilising, companion planting, but they still go from here (tiny head)

scungy brocoli head

to here:

"but I never even saw you bud!?!"

The cabbages are also quite frustrating, although I can take my anger out on the green caterpillars that like to munch on the leaves.  They're delightfully fun to squash!

The creatures that I haven't come across before are those on my cherry tree that I just noticed this morning:  little black slug-like creatures (pictured below).  Help! what are they? how do I get rid of them?

The nectarine tree (I think - I forgot to mark the trees too), which has the leaf curl is producing cute little fruit things.  Now, I know that people say that you should break off fruit to encourage growth in the first year, but is it really necessary?  The poor tree's trying so hard despite the odds....

Oh and last but not least, my leeks are going to flower.  They're such beautiful forms with their curved buds and so I really have no regrets not eating them all.

For the last year, I've left a couple of almost all plant varieties to go to seed, simply because I'm curious about their life-cycles.  I think it's a good way of learning, and as an added bonus if you're lucky (like I've been), things like spinach and lettuce will come up the next year without you lifting a finger...

Blue[green]berries, an unlikely flower and a curly problem...

I've just come in from an arm-buggering session mowing the grass.  I own a handmower partly because it's better for the environment (not using petrol or electricity), partly because I can't afford to get someone to regularly mow my lawns for me, and partly because it's a lot cheaper than a gym membership (that is, it's good exercise).  I haven't really needed to mow all winter, but now that it's spring, it seems to be a weekly calling, which a bugger 'cause i really don't like grass (and have evil plans afoot to kill it all...).

However, spring has also brought a few other surprises: the very unlikely flower that bloomed out of the otherwise unremarkable spikey plant has bloomed again (pictured above).  I don't know what it's called.

The blueberries are starting to form.  It's the first time I've ever seen blueberries that have not come from a plastic container,  so I'm pretty damn excited.  The particular plant variety pictured right is called 'Denise', but 'Brigitta' is also starting to produce.

As an experiment, I planted the two trees in different areas - Brigitta is in full sun in the front yard, and Denise is down the side of the house with partial sun, particularly in winter.  Now I know it's not a true experiment as they're different varieties; but because blueberries apparently like full sun, I just wanted to see what would happen.  Interestingly, Denise, who lost all her leaves in winter, has actually produced more flowers (and hence will produce more berries) than Brigitta, who retained a few of her leaves.  They're actually very beautiful bushes, with leaves that turned a lovely artichoke purple in autumn.  You can see a few of the white flowers that then turn into the berries in the picture.  The berries are still quite small and not ready for eating, but I suspect that I'm going to have to net them this weekend before the ruddy blackbirds cotton on.

Meanwhile, the artichokes are on super-productive-mega-drive.  I can't keep up with the sheer pace, particularly as the one plant seems to have divided over the 8 or so months I've had it, and so I have twice as many artichokes. I didn't realise until this morning, but the buds are forming all the way down the stem, not just at the top.  I had a few friends around last weekend and decided to see what they were like to BBQ.  I boiled the artichokes for about ten minutes, then halved them and BBQed them with some olive oil.  They're fantastically versatile vegetables once you get over the initial fear of cooking them.  Additionally, while people say 'oh you have to get out the choke', 'you can't eat the choke', I believe that's rubbish.  I eat the choke every time (and I've never choked...).

The strawberries that the crazy neighbour gave me last year, too late in the season to actually produce, have quadrupled in size and have the lovely white and yellow flowers that I'd be quite happy having in the garden even if they didn't produce fruit.

One thing that disappoints me however, is that my nectarine tree seems to have leaf curl.  This morning, I trotted off to the nursery that sold me the tree in August to get them to confirm the problem, and they seemed surprised that it had the problem so soon.  Apparently, there's not much I can do about it at the moment other than pull all the 'curled' leaves off and burn or tightly bag them and stick them in the bin to stop the spread of the fungal infection.  Then next winter I need to spray them with anti-fungal spray, and again as the tree's budding.   

Bloomin' Progress

Well, all but one of my expensive 'sticks' has bloomed.  When I say sticks, I mean the fruit trees I bought and have been anxiously waiting for them to flower and greenify.  The exception is one raspberry cane, which definitely just looks like a prickly stick.

A few of the trees have flowered and well as growing leaves, and I wonder if they'll actually produce one or two edible cherries, apricots, nectarines, apples, or greengages this year?  I proved last year with dear little Figly (the Genoa Fig tree) that I'm unable to pull off fruit in a tree's early formative years simply to encourage growth, so they definitely have to be edible. 

In regards to the artichokes mentioned in the previous post, since I last blogged I've had 5 more smaller artichokes to play with.  They're wonderful boiled for 20mins in salted water and then eaten with oil and balsamic.  Just watch out for the boiled baby slugs curled up in the 'petals'.

As I mentioned in a recent post, I'm having a few image transfer issues.  I hope to post photos of the trees and get back to more illustrated blogging soon.  What's the fun in just words?!

Help! Artichoke advice needed

Mr artichoke and sons

 I'm notoriously bad at knowing when to pick fruit and vegies, and tend to leave it that little bit too long.  I have my first globe artichoke here.  I blogged about it earlier in the week but it seems to have progressed quite a lot since then and now has two tiny hangeronerers on each side.   My question is: is this artichoke ready for the picking or should I leave it a bit longer.  Part of me says 'pick it!', the other bit of me (and I suspect it's the dominant 'leave it' part) says 'don't be a fool, it's only young'.  Does anyone have any suggestions? Advice?

Oh and any cooking suggestions while you're at it?

mf of an artichoke plant

artichoke no longer choking

My artichoke is finally doing something other than leaves!

I have two artichoke plants.  I bought one, and once I was satisfied that I was unlikely to kill it, I purchased another.  I knew they grew quite tall, so I planted them both at the southern end of two different garden beds, but I wasn't expecting them to cover over a meter in width each with their massive green fronds. Nor did I expect the plants to take so long to produce a flower (it's been about 8 months).  The photo above is of the original plant. The other is still quite small, strangely enough.

I bought them both from the lovely woman at Salamanca markets - the one that I waxed lyrical about a couple of posts ago.  I spoke to her about what I wanted it for, and she advised me to get the green artichoke.  Now, call me stupid, but I reckon I might have accidently received the purple one....


My posts have dropped off lately, unfortunately.  This is partly because of a bad back and mostly because the only way to get images of my garden onto this blog at the moment is to take a photo with my iPhone, post it to Twitter, drag the photo off twitter onto my desktop and then post the image.  Obviously, I'm not going to do that with the 50-odd enthusiastically snapped garden photos currently on my phone.  Some parting wise words: don't accidently bin iPhoto from your mac and don't expect a digital camera to survive a pond experience...

bird

I found this beautiful creature dead outside my back door today:

We've had some crazy weather in the last couple of weeks: snow down to 200m (it was snowing just up the road from me), ghost-imitating howling winds, rain, cold.... 

It seems like an odd place for it to die, but a friend suggested that it probably just had a wee steering problem and smacked into the window.  It's currently wrapped in tissues in a takeaway container in the freezer.  I was going to bury it, but a local woman who makes jewellery out of animals who have died of natural causes is going to pick it up and give it a new life, so to speak.

Real Estate Poison

When I moved into my house, I didn't assume my garden was 'organic'.  Who knows what the last owners got up to with poisons and additives.  But then again, the Real Estate agent never pretended that it was organic.  When I finally found the key to the garden shed a couple of months later, a couple of squirt bottles of round-up and some snail bait confirmed that the previous owners were trigger happy. Case closed.

However, in some Real Estate sneakiness, Raine and Horne are currently selling a house in Bathurst Street with the description 'A Very Peaceful Organic Garden' (their capitalisations, strangely).  Now, I know the tenants currently renting that house, where they nurture an admirable vegie patch.  While they don't use poison in the garden to my knowledge, the real estate agent never asked them if they do, which means that there's no way that the Raine and Horne should be advertising the garden as 'organic' (although they'd probably something along the lines of 'it's organic in that most items are carbon-based'). 

Luckily, most people have a healthy scepticism of real estate agents, and this probably just reinforces the profession's bad image. Still, I think it's ridiculous that they advertise happy organicness, and then... wait for it... tell them to kill all the oxalis in the front yard NOW (in your dreams, estate agent).  Personally, if I were my friends, I'd take poison to the oxalis. 

Next house inspection, I'd probably also leave out those buckets underneath the  'great use of [leaking roof and] skylights' and let potential buyers see for themselves just how  '[dodgily] well restored & extended with quality [makeshift] fittings and [common] exceptional [mould] taste', the house actually is.

Buyer beware.