Category Archives: Fruit

Tomatoes, quail and dragon fruit galore!

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February has been busy and productive at McCarthyPark 2! Our quail hatching last month wasn’t great, with only 10 hatching, so we bought some tiny day old quail chicks and added those to the brooder box, and transferred the older ones to a cage outside that is set up with a heater (but fortunately isn’t as stinky as it is outside!). They are all doing very well, and growing so quickly!

We have also had great success with our dragon fruit again this year, with a total of 24 flowers turning to fruit. It is particularly good that the flowering has been a bit better spaced out, so we are able to pick and eat some while the others ripen. We hand pollinated again just to be sure as some of the flowers are under the pergola roof.

And tomatoes….. oh my goodness we have had such an abundance, just from four plants in the aquaponics- a Roma, yellow pear, and two different cherry tomatoes.

This is just one, that produces the most beautiful large cherry tomatoes!

Every weekend has been spent preserving, as well as eating fresh and giving away heaps! So far this summer we have canned cherry tomatoes and crushed tomatoes….

The cherry tomatoes siphoned a bit, but will be ok for a while.

We have also canned (and eaten!) jars of shakshouka, creole sauce and salsa- we have plenty to last for a while once the tomatoes stop producing (no signs of that as yet though!)

The shakshouka was made by adapting the spices in the Ball Book recipe for spicy creole sauce- yum!

Summer bounty!

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We have had a mix of weather so far this summer, with some heat but also lots of wind. Despite this, we have had some good growth – particularly our grapes that were planted around the ‘duckagon‘. They have really bushed up and now form a fabulous shady pen for the ducks, and there are lots of bunches of grapes too!

The bees seem to have finally settled….. at least one hive anyway. After some extensive bee dramas, which involved completely emptying each hive some distance away and then setting it up again and letting the worker bees fly back, we installed a nuc into each, complete with a queen and brood. Hive 1 is certainly on its way, with the new queen visible and laying well. Hive 2….still not sure, but the boost from the nuc has helped but there was no evidence of a laying queen, so we have put a new one in yet again! Fingers crossed.

As we usually do in summer, we have incubated some quail eggs and now have 10 very cute quail chicks. They are so tiny when they hatch, but grow and grow at a great rate! These little ones were hinting that it was time to come out of the incubator and into the brooder with some food!

Chilly and wet winter!

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Well, this winter has been very wet with both rainwater tanks overflowing- that’s 210,000 litres worth of rainwater storage! We are really pleased, as this sets us up well for summer, and this is our only source of water for the house (we have a bore for the grounds). The downside of all that rain is that the gardens are waterlogged! The amount of water, along with some extended frost (we got down to minus 3, followed by a few days of minus 1/minus 2) means several of our fruit trees and garden plants have really suffered.

We lost a heap of passionfruit, with the unripe fruit dropping off from the cold, and it looks like the vines are lost too! In addition to that, the quail pens have had a regular drenching. So, as in ‘there is never nothing to do’, we have rethought that area. We plan to move the quail pens so we can roof over the top, and have planted out a new passionfruit area alongside the tank. We are hoping the tank will help reduce the risk of frost, plus bought more frost resistant plants (Panama red and Panama yellow).

Fingers crossed these passionfruit benefit from the warmth of the tank on those frosty mornings!

Despite netting both mangoes and the sapodilla to help protect them from the frost, as they were very seriously set back a couple of winters ago, the leaves have not survived the extended frost we had this year. Fingers crossed they bounce back- we did enjoy some hope grown mango last year so we are keen to nurse them along!

The guava has also really suffered! It has never done quite as well at McCarthyPark 2 as it did in the old place, which is such a shame… but again we are hopeful!

Like in ‘setbacks’, at times it feels like one step forward and two steps back… and if the trees don’t bounce back in spring/summer we need to seriously consider ripping them out and replacing them with more frost hardy trees. We would be reluctant to do so though, given we brought them to McCarthyPark 2 as already mature trees…fingers crossed!

Fruit and vegetables galore!

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It has been great to get more fruit this year, which hopefully indicates the fruit trees are now well established after the big relocation from McCarthy Park 1. Earlier this year we had mango and dragon fruit, and this month we have pomegranate and pears, both have been amazingly delicious! There really is nothing like picking and eating fruit straight from the tree!

We have also been harvesting lots of limes, pears, guava and lilly pilly, the passionfruit vines are laden, and there are 3 remaining avocados on the tree for the very first time!

The aquaponics system and pumpkin palace have also both been producing well, with plenty of cucumber, basil, tomatoes, carrots, parsnip and chillies in particular!

Of course, and the food we produce is shared amongst family and friends, as well as preserved for future enjoyment. There are jars of dairy free pesto in the freezer; green relish, sweet chilli sauce, lime chutney and kasundi in the produce room; and yet more pickled eggs in the fridge!

Dragon fruit update!

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So far so good with a lot of the dragon fruit! We had one flower the first night, 8 the second night, 9 the third night, and one on the fourth and final night of flowering. A total of 19 flowers!

Here you can see one flower bud that will not be viable, the the others look good!

We hand pollinated each night, using a soft paintbrush by brushing the pollen off the stamens and the petals where it had dropped to, and then brushing it into the stigma. In our enthusiasm, we went out too early the second night and the pollen hadn’t yet been released, but when we went out a couple of hours later there was plenty of pollen on the lower petals we could brush up into a container.

From early in the mornings after flowering, the flowers were covered in bees! this must have helped the pollination process too!

Now, nearly two weeks later, three unviable fruit have fallen off, but the remainder are swelling very nicely!

Dragon fruit….again!

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Last year we were very disappointed to loose the few dragon fruit flowers that had grown for the first time, but are really hopeful for this year! After annual setbacks due to frost, we had to move them again from the raised beds and planted them in large pots just on the edge of the verandah, and they are thriving! They have grown so much, and several now have multiple buds…watch this space!

Even if some of them fruit, we will be thrilled! Especially as we have lost a few things towards the end of this hot Perth summer…..

Guinea pigs and much more!

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Yes, that’s right- guinea pigs! We read that guinea pigs LOVE eating grass and weeds, so decided to get some to base in the orchard. Due to the risk of predators, we don’t let them free range, but keep them in an enclosure around a fruit tree. So far we have two groups of boys- the brothers Huey, Dewey and Louie; and the brothers Pinky and Perky. So far it has been successful, in that they have stayed safe and are eating down the grass!

Dewey and Louie in their enclosure around the pomegranate tree
Huey, Louie and Dewey (L to R)

It has been a particularly busy January, not just with the new arrival of the guinea pigs. The ducklings are growing at a rate of knots, and we have now moved the four from mama hen and joined them with the rest of the ducks.

We also cleaned out the yabby tank, and were thrilled with how many there are! After moving to McCarthy Park 2, we kept getting losses and really couldn’t figure out why. The only real difference between the places was that in MP 1 we used bore water (as that was our only water supply), and in MP 2 we used rain water (as the bore water is ok for the garden but is a bit brown and sulphide smelly). Well, in desperation we eventually just started using bore water to see if it made any difference, and it obviously has! There are large, medium and small yabbies, lots of tiny babies, and at least a couple of females ‘berried’- with eggs.

mid way through emptying and refreshing the tank- gorgeous blue yabbies!
Just some of the yabbies, the smaller ones

It has been HOT, far too hot to work outside during the middle of the day, so that is a good time to preserve the harvest.

We have had an abundance of tomatoes, still (!), and have made sauces and given plenty away. We also dehydrated a few, to store in oil for snacks and pasta.

Also the hot weather encourages other inside jobs like saving and storing seeds from our home grown vegetables….

Over the years, we have tried a few different seed storage systems and methods (eg by season, by month), but this is the most successful for us- alphabetical order!

It’s been a long time…….

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After some time to renew and refresh the website…..we are back!

It has been a busy few months, with lots growing and happening, and is best said in pictures to get us back on track!

Beautiful fungi

Ducklings December 2020

Mama hen raising turkeys!
Over the summer we added supers to the horizontals, harvested, and removed them in April for the cooler weather.
We have had a bumper crop of citrus going on for months!
Stunning sunset, photo by Philby
Wheat and lupins sown and growing
Long necked turtle found away from the dam- we took it to the water, fingers crossed!

We were honoured to have a pair of butcher birds raise a family in front of the house!

More fruit!

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The orchard is now pruned and fertilised, and looks like being a bumper season. Apart from the citrus, the nectarines and peaches are looking very healthy with lots of flower buds. The loquat is bursting………

Loquats to come!

…….and the ice-cream beans are ripening….

Ice-cream beans, our first!

Fingers crossed for a great fruit season this year!

Delicious Citrus!

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Our orchard is growing and producing! At the moment the citrus are just ripening, and look fabulous. It was great to plant different varieties that fruit at different times of the year. One mandarin tree has finished and the next is almost ready. Just love the bright orange of the mandarins and oranges, they look so fresh.

The lemon tree is also producing well, which is very timely as we have almost run out of frozen lemon wedges! And the main orange tree near the house also has an abundant crop again.