Tag Archives: plums

Windy!

December 15, 2014 Irihapeti 1 Comment

South-Easterly

We were away from South Head from Saturday morning until Sunday early evening, and while we were gone, a very strong south-easterly wind developed. The prevailing wind for our area is supposed to be a southerly, but in actual fact, a straight southerly doesn’t really affect our property due to the fact that there is a convenient rise in the land that protects us. We do sometimes get a nor-easterly. While this is annoying, we’ve put things in place to protect our vulnerable plants – sturdy stakes and protective shelter material… that kind of thing. But this south-easterly is coming in from an angle we haven’t experienced before.

The wind is doing its best to separate the washing from the line!

When I hung out the washing earlier I had to use twice as many pegs per garment. It reminded me of trying to wrestle with cloth nappies in Lyall Bay, Wellington, back in the 70s.

Plums

This doesn't really show the extent of the plum loss - they are spread over a wide area of ground — This doesn’t really show the extent of the plum loss – they are scattered over a wide area of ground

I was too exhausted last night to look at the garden, but the first intimation I had that all was not well was when Ben reported that nearly all the fruit had been blown off from my favourite plum tree. This is the plum tree in what we now term our ‘native’ area – it’s an old tree that has less plums than the one growing closer to the vege garden. But the plums are larger and have a deep red flesh.

I love them and have been looking forward to eating them.

When I went out earlier this morning to take stock, I felt like crying.

And I do still have a heavy heart, but I suppose there is no point in shedding tears over lost fruit. At least we aren’t dependent on our fruit or our crops for our livelihood.

The second plum tree - mostly unaffected by the wind — The second plum tree – mostly unaffected by the wind

Fortunately, the other plum tree is situated out of the worst of the wind. It’s still laden with fruit.

Local Birds

The wind has has had an impact on the birds that have chosen to make their homes here, as well. I’m sure they were just as unprepared for the wind’s unusual direction.

We’ve found quite a few parts of nests on the ground, and the sparrows are busy with recycling; flying down to collect the broken nest parts from the ground and carrying them back up to their respective nesting sites.

A tiny nest lined with hair of some kind.

Ben found the above nest below the macadamia tree, although it’s so light that it could have blown from anywhere.

It’s quite a bit smaller than any I’ve seen on the ground before. The diameter of the inner bowl is approximately 4.5 to 5 cm and it’s lined with silvery grey hair of some kind. I pulled a couple of strands out and it’s too coarse to be human or from a cat. And I think too long to be from a dog… I’m wondering if it’s horse hair or something like that. I really have no idea.

It’s a beautiful little nest, though, with moss and lichen woven in to the outside.

Possibly a blackbird's or a thrush's nest. — Possibly a blackbird’s or a thrush’s nest.

The above nest is much more loosely-woven than the smaller one. It’s also quite a bit larger – around 9 to 10 cm across the bowl of the nest. We’re pretty sure it belonged to either a blackbird or a song thrush. We could only see the tail of the bird sticking up when it was sitting on, it as it was just out of eye sight.

The nest had been built in quite a small, spindly broad-leaf, and right from the start was partly tipping out, so it’s not surprising that it was dislodged by the wind. This nest is constructed almost entirely from grasses, with a tiny bit of lichen visible… and it seems to be lined with fine mud.

Our resident Blackbird couple are raising their third batch of eggs this season. The female is currently sitting on three eggs – I had first observed her back on the nest on 09 December, which surprised me. Raising young seemed to be a never-ending process for her and I wasn’t sure if was because something had happened to her previous babies or whether she would keep on raising new broods if time allowed.

With her second batch I had noted the following: –

19 November: 2 whole eggs, 2 hatched
20 November: 4 hatched
02 December: 4 chicks, well feathered and alert
03 December: Nest empty

It seems amazing to me that it only took 13 days to go from hatching to flight.

I found an excellent page which provided me with the answers on the Tiritiri Matangi site. It seems that Blackbirds do raise 2 – 3 broods per year, and that the chicks fledge at 13 – 15 days. The other interesting fact I read is that a Blackbird’s possible lifespan is 15 years.

Garden Diary

It's going to be a bumper season for passionfruit. — It’s going to be a bumper season for passion fruit.

The garden has been flourishing, and as usual, I’ve been struggling to keep on top of things. There has been more rain in November & December in comparison with the past couple of years, which is a good thing. We’ve only had to water the vegetable garden once, and that very evening it rained, so …

We’re been well-served by our vegetables and have been eating asparagus, beetroot, silver beet, green beans, peas, lettuces, rocket, new potatoes and Florence fennel. Probably some other things as well but it’s hard to keep up.

Sweet Peas

I can’t finish today’s entry without putting in a plug for Sweet Peas. I was very disappointed with the strike rate for the seeds I sowed in winter. I had used up a whole packet but only a handful of seeds germinated.

Well… the ones that did sprout, combined with a few self-sown plants, have provided a wonderful display once again. I’m sure the extra rain has helped, too.

I love these flowers and every other day have picked enough to fill two vases. Even as I sit here writing I can smell their sweet and spicy scent from across the room.

Recipe

Plum Chutney

January 1, 2014 Irihapeti 1 Comment

Ingredients

2 kg plums, stones removed (and skins, too, if you have the energy)
500 grams finely chopped onion
1 cup raisins
1 cup sultanas
1 clove of garlic (crushed)
4 cups of soft brown sugar
2 tsp plain salt
1 tsp mixed spice
habanero pepper to taste (seeds removed)
4 cups malt vinegar

Method

Combine plums, onions, raisins, sultanas, garlic, brown sugar, salt, mixed spice and habanero in a preserving pan. Add enough malt vinegar to almost cover and stir well.

Bring to the boil and simmer gently with frequent stirring for 2 hours, or until the chutney as thickened to a jam-like consistency.

(I was too lazy to remove the skins before cooking, so I picked them out once they were floating on top.)

Pack into sterilised jars and seal while hot.

Notes

This will make enough for 6 x 350 ml jars.

Unopened, this chutney will keep for up to 1 year. Once opened, store in the fridge.

Adapted from the recipe for Fruit Chutney, published in ‘Edmonds Chutneys, Pestos, Jams & Other preserves, (2000), p. 12.

Garden Notes, Recipe

Pumpkins and cherry slugs

December 12, 2013 Irihapeti 2 Comments

We’ve had a few sunny days in a row and this has been reflected in the growth in the pumpkin & squash patch. This year, I raised three varieties from seed and they are all doing really well (‘Thelma Saunders Sweet Potato’, ‘Burgess Buttercup’ and ‘Butternut Chieftain’). There are quite a few pumpkins set already, some growing quite round and fat. We planted and sowed most of our cucurbits in the native garden this year, and already I can see that it was a very sensible choice. In previous years we’ve tried the back paddock (too dry and windy), in the main vegetable garden (too invasive) and on the grass in front of the barn (became overgrown with grass). The native garden is sheltered and sunny, with very rich loamy soil. The worst two weeds are convolvulus and madeira vine. But I feel that I can control these two by digging them out when they come up and either leaving in the sun to shrivel up (convolvulus) or putting out in the rubbish collection (madeira vine).

Our zucchini ‘Costasta Romanesco‘ is huge, the fat yellow and green fruit remind me of smooth alien guinea pigs. The hens have stirred up the wood chips around them and the zucchinis are difficult to find until they have grown too big for my liking. Costasta Romanesco is a variety grown especially for their huge male flowers, which can be stuffed, coated in batter and deep fried. But the zucchinis themselves also taste really good sliced thickly and fried in olive oil with sage leaves – they are much starchier than the commonly-grown zucchinis, with a lovely nutty flavour, and the sage leaves turn all crispy.

Ben has been collecting plums by the tray load, halving them and freezing them free flow. This particular old prunus was here when we moved in and is quite gnarly and covered in lichen. There wasn’t much fruit last year in comparison with 2011, but this year it is completely laden with beautiful red-skinned, golden-fleshed plums. They taste the best if you can pick them when they turn purple but before they drop to the ground. Each morning when we let the hens out, they hurry over to feast on the plums that have fallen over night. There are more than we can keep up with. I eat them whenever I walk past the tree but it barely makes a difference. In the past we’ve made plum wine and plum sauce. At least if we manage to freeze a good deal of them, I’ll still have the option to do this when life isn’t so busy.

The big shock yesterday was when I discovered that the leaves of our tiny dwarf cherry tree ‘Stella’ were covered in slimy little slugs. We picked them all off and offered them to the hens, but they weren’t interested. I later identified them as larvae of the sawfly (caliroa cerasi). Many of the leaves had been converted over night from healthy green to lacy brown. Thank goodness I do tend to walk around the complete garden on a daily basis. When I checked again this morning there was only a solitary slug, so it seems that the crisis has been averted.

I also saw my very first ‘white-tailed’ spider, (Lampona spp.) I’m always looking for different and interesting bugs and plants so when I saw this particular spider sitting near the ceiling of our porch, I rushed to fetch my camera and a stool. I had to get really close up to take the photo and was surprised when I saw the white tip on its abdomen when I looked at the image later on. There is quite a bit of negative hype about these spiders, but from what I have read, they are somewhat maligned.

It’s been a good day for power generation. At the time of writing (7.30 pm), our 2KW system has generated just under 14KWh. It has been a very hot and calm day, with the temperature ranging from 18C when I arose at 7.30 am and reaching over 30C in the sheltered patch by the bromeliad garden at around 3.00 pm this afternoon. The sweet corn is ripening in the paddock behind the barn and the maize that stretches away to the north is very tall and lush.

Sitting here I can see across the Kaipara to the East. The distant hills are a hazy blue grey, sandwiched between the palest blue sky and the silvery forget-me-not blue of the water. In the foreground are our harakeke, which have flowered for the first time, sending straight spurs of rusty red flowers towards the sky.

Tomorrow I have to head to Wellington for an overnight meeting. A major garden task for when I return will be to attempt to sort out part of our vegetable garden that is filled with scattered sweet-corn plants (a blackbird hen dug up most of them), self-sown Cleome (I want to plant these around the climbing beans), a few pumpkins and squashes, and other self-sown vegetables. We are going to try to move all the corn to one end before they get too tall, rescue the Cleome and make some sense of the array of other vegetables that are growing there.