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!
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!
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…..
The hot weather has continued, with several days above 40- the hottest so far being 44.5! We have a few allocated ‘sanctuaries’ where the wildlife can have some respite from the heat- one being the ‘billabong’ which we established not long after we moved in.
With that level of heat, we have lost a few plants and others are struggling, but there are a remarkable amount that are coping well, including veggies that keep on producing- zucchini, tomatoes, pumpkin, chilli, scalloped squash and beans- we have had heaps of these!
We have made a few batches of sweet chilli sauce and kasundi- both family favourites!
tomatoes and chilli prepped for kasundiyummy tomatoes, chillies and spices bubbling away– we have had plenty of home grown veggies for dinner! Some of the squash get overlooked and are then big enough to stuff and bake
The hot weather has brought out some rarely seen animals – like a Boxer Bark Mantid, one we have never seen before, and a very large trapdoor spider which unfortunately drowned in the pool on its evening explore.
February has continued to be very hot (the highest we recorded was 44.7 Celcius!! Some areas of the garden suffered in the heat, but a few of the veggies thrived! We had tomatoes in abundance, and despite giving away loads to family and friends there was plenty to preserve.
So we tended to do indoor jobs on those hot days, including lots of preserving the produce that was in abundance, such as…..
Creole sauce is a wonderfully versatile sauce using up the abundance of tomatoes and other veggies. It will make a great pasta sauce, or a base to add meat to, or to add to casseroles in the cooler weather. We are always happy to have plenty of sweet chilli sauce on hand too, so have made quite a few bottles this season with our great ongoing crop of long red chilli.Batches of stewed rhubarb, zucchini pickles, and more delicious Creole sauce!
With the heat, we have been working on perfecting our sourdough bread in a camp oven on the barbecue rather than having the oven on in the house- it has been quite successful, though more tweaking of the controls to get the best temperature for the final browning is needed.
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 treeHuey, 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!
Well, we have had a bit of rain to top up the tanks, so no need to buy water for a while at least But it is so cold! One weekend morning it was minus 2.1 still at 7.30am!
A few plants suffered with the sudden chill, so now we are trying to protect them with nets to see if that helps them bounce back in spring.
Preserving has continued, with a bit of a reshuffle in the produce room needed to fit it all on the shelves. It has also been a bit tedious writing the contents on each lid (in case we forget what is what!), so now we write on the shelf directly with chalk!
We had such a great pumpkin harvest this year, so some was chopped and canned in some broth ready to make pumpkin soup, mash or add to casseroles- yum! There are still loads of pumpkins to harvest too!
And in exiting news, our Flemish Giant rabbit ‘Kep’ (Nyungar for ‘rain’) is due to have babies any day! She is looking particularly large around the middle, and has started pulling out fur to line a nest behind her crate. This will be her first litter, so fingers are crossed all goes well for her and the kits.
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!
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.
Last post was about how many lemons we had, and making Lemon and Mustard Seed Chutney- now it is oranges!
We gave our 30+ year old orange tree a good prune as it was getting very tall and overhanging the roof. Timing for pruning has always been difficult with this orange tree as it is always in fruit! As one lot of oranges are ready to harvest, so another lot are forming. We decided to just go for it as we had way too many oranges and the tree really needed a tidy.
After pruning we had so many oranges to give away and preserve.
plenty of oranges!
We gave away a couple of baskets, and made some more of our delicious Orange Brandy Liqueur, which always is well received at Christmas time!
orange brandy liqueur in progress
There will be more of that to come, plus maybe some Orange Chutney……….
orange tree AFTER pruning!
Last month was pruning time for our orchard, and now the plums and nectarines are starting to flower! Hopefully we get lots of delicious fruit again this year!
plum tree in flower
And just to update on the bee hive move- it is going really well! Thank goodness, because it has been very cold and windy in Perth since we did the move. Today was lovely and sunny and we saw plenty of coming and going and also plenty of pollen coming into the hive. Phew!
