It's finally stopped raining, I had a wee look around the garden this morning and the garlic has popped up. It amazes me how it endures the coldest of winter's frosts at the beginning of it's growing cycle. I planted them about a month ago and made pickled garlic from the smaller bulbs.
Next job in the garden will be fruit tree pruning if the weather settles, I want lovely fine, still days.

Hazel

Hazelnut catkins.

I haven't planted my hazels close enough to enjoy prolific crops. They're wind pollinated and the pollen off one variety needs to connect with the tiny little red hairs at the top of the catkins on the other variety to make magic happen.

I've picked a few and waived the pollen around.

The moon looks quite good for taking cuttings.

A "grove" of hazels would be nice.

Garden notes July-Hops

Spent hop flowers make beautiful light compost. When they're fresh you can use them for beer, hop pillows or just for country style decoration.
But,

mark my words:
if you plant a vine at the corner of your chook enclosure thinking that a beautiful trailing hop vine will be a wonderful addition to that area of the garden, you might just live to regret it.

The roots will soon attempt to circumnavigate the whole neighbourhood.
Some of them are as thick as my arm and they run for metres from the original site and re sprout themselves where they choose. It's not that I no longer love hop vines but they have a very strong will of their own. Mine has become seriously annoying as it lifted up the chook fence with it's growth last summer. Now that everything is dormant the chooks can see that it's quite easy to just wander out into the garden to scratch where I've spread mulch. So the hop vine is coming out. It will probably take a few years to get on top of it too. Serves me right, I'm sure someone warned me not to plant it. It's that time of the year to get everything in good shape for the next growing season. I have alot of pruning, clearing and mulching to catch up on.

Cold wet garden

July in our cold, wet, frosty garden is not yielding much to eat. A lot of the brassicas I planted are getting frosted, which means I should concentrate on getting a bit more shelter established. If I forage around I can find: coriander, calendula, leeks, lettuce, brussel sprouts, spring onions, mizuna, mustard, fennel seeds, silver beet, beetroot, celery, corn salad, nettle, pumpkins and carrots. Though many of the greens have been nibbled by a chook or burnt by the frost . Lucky the bach has a good mandarin tree and I have some good stores saved.

After months of little enthusiasm I got motivated to plant more garlic and shallots this week. I also felt sorry for the roosters I am fattening, because the weather is so cold I've given them the glasshouse to scratch around in. They will fertilise and clear it for me since I didn't manage to get a crop in there. I'm spoilt to also have the small tunnel house which has mesculen mix, peas and brassicas growing slowly but surely for spring. Not sure why I'm getting a ground moss in there this year though.

It's too wet for pruning, and too cold for planting seeds here at the moment. The snow is down quite low on the mountain, we've got the fire roaring but I think we should take up the Government's offer of subsidising some under floor insulation.

Sowing or sewing

Helen made a good point about pruning, if the weather is nasty don't do it. Disease can very easily enter through fresh cuts. I try to do the pruning with the moon but not if the weather doesn't suit.

The new seeds arrived in the mail today, I can't wait to get planting! I'm holding off till the first quarter of the moon to give them a really good start. I bet folks have already got tomato and pepper seeds going but I have learned in my garden that the late frosts will set back all the early seedlings so much so that the late ones catch up.

A bit of distraction is needed so I've got a project on the go to keep me busy. Fingers crossed this dress suits me cos I love the fabric, I've been hoarding it for a couple of years!!!

And one more thing, does anyone eat Jerusalem artichokes? I roasted them the other night, all the kids said "Yuck" and I wouldn't go for them again unless I had no other root veges to choose from. I wondered if anyone out there had a better way of cooking them?

Pruning

Lance use to prune apple trees for a job, I found his tools today. I Love pruning!

It was a bit silly of me to not take Mum up on her offer to prune my roses though cos I still have alot of other pruning to finish.

Completed the biggest fruit tree this morning and my least favorite bramble, the boysenberry - they're so prickly. If you're turning a small section of land into a garden I'd leave these off the plant list unless you really love them. I've got four which I thought were going to produce enough berries to make jam, eat fresh , bottle and make wine out of but these four bushes take up as much space as the raspberries, require twice the effort in pruning and yield about half as much. I'd go for a thorn less blackberries and raspberries instead. Our single blackberry probably produces as much as those darned boysenberries all put together. To prune the boysenberries and blackberries cut out all last seasons fruiting canes and tie up the growth that came up during summer make kind of a fan. Easy. Peach trees I've got sussed too. Before......

.....after

When you select your tree or seedling from the garden centre have in mind the shape you want. All mine are vase shaped cos I reckon that's the easiest. You prune it to have four or five evenly spaced main branches. I like them to start low so they can be picked without a ladder. During summer I prune off alot of the new really fast leafy shoots and in winter I fix anything I don't like shape wise. Thin it out so there will be good airflow and sun reaching fruit to ripen. I shorten the end growth to try and keep the tree vase- ing out wards instead of upwards where I won't be able to reach the fruit. I don't let my fruit trees produce fruit for their first two years, picking off all the flowers so that they put all their energy into producing a good root system is worth it.

I found some buried treasures today too. Last year I didn't have room to put yams in, I've missed them, so I was pleased to find some wildings under some weeds. The Jerusalem artichokes are mammoth! I've grown them in the past for their ability to make a tall screen but these beauties will have to be tasted. I'm a bit nervous cos they don't look delicious.

Garden notes july- seaweed

I'm obsessed with seaweed.

I've been helping out a relative by managing a holiday home for him at Kina beach, after cleaning ready for guests I thought I'd pop out to the peninsula to give the dog and kids a run around. My heart beat with excitement ,( I know! I'm a pretty low maintenance chick.) when I saw masses of seaweed and leaf mulch deposited on the beach. Thank goodness my cruddy old station wagon was due for a clean out, I was able to fill a sack, some supermarket bags and 4 of my reusable bags with seaweed. When I got home, of course I didn't have enough. So I went again the next day with lots of sacks and some bribed helpers.

So that's the asparagus patch by the neighbours fence, it's thoroughly covered. The peach tree is living on borrowed time, if it doesn't produce with significantly less brown rot this year it's out of there. The little triangle patch next to the glass cloches and baby mandarin is also covered. Haven't decided what's going in there yet but I just love my garden at this time of year the control freak in me likes everything mulched and weed free.

See I've mulched more beds here with pea straw and seaweed over by the naughty chook ( prison) run. They go on weeding duty in this run if they get in the garden. No one's in there at the moment as they're all behaving and laying eggs.

Other jobs being done this month: Half the pruning is done, the rest is waiting for the last quarter of the moon next week to finish it off.

I'm not doing carrots at the full moon, my garden's too cold and wet but I've got pea seed in behind the asparagus right up against the fence where it's a little warmer.

The brassicas in the glasshouse are looking very happy on a diet of worm juice.

Cuttings of grape vines are done but there's still plenty of time to do cuttings of berries, grapes, herbs etc.

Tree tomato looks dead in the frost. Passion fruit is holding on.

Seeds are sorted ready to plant in the next first quarter. I'll do hardier herbs and veges in the glass house and tomatoes and peppers on the window sill inside. Feeling more low maintenance excitement here!

Not feeling like going back to work!