I’m taking the time while I have Dylan around to shake off the thick layer of digital dust my photo archive has been gathering. I have so many moments to share it’s hard to pick what to tick off first.
Baby is in a feather light sleep next to me which involves a lot of dummy sucking and arm flailing, but let’s see if I can finally post these photos of what was happening in the food forest as spring turned to summer. Today a scorching hot day, so I imagine it will look a lot different when we next visit. So glad we have a watering system!
Things were too hectic with the new baby to capture the apple blossom in all its powder pink glory, but we were organised enough this year to net the apricot and peach against fruit fly and the red apple against the birds. The billowing white nets are actually quite beautiful in a way, they float above the thick carpet of yarrow like a mist of benign ghosts.
Last year the feijoa had its first two, maybe three flowers. Now it is covered in red Christmas bauble blossoms. The jar of parsley seeds I saved from home and lazily broadcast months ago has also come good. The umbels are beautiful under the trees and promise we will have parsley this coming year too without having to resow. The nasturtiums and pepinos had withered in the late frosts, but their massive amount of regrowth following has smothered all competitors.
The food forest was looking a bit grim in November and I thought it just couldn’t cope without my attention, which had been elsewhere while I was pregnant. Turns out all it needed was a good water after a dry winter and a broken timer on the watering system. Drip irrigation operational and some heavy downpours saw the food forest lush and green in a matter of weeks. The weeds also awakened though and we had to do quite a lot of grass pulling.
The silvanberry fruit are ripening and unlike the thornless bramble we have at home birds seem less willing to grasp their stems to feast.
The silvanberry fruit are ripening and unlike the thornless bramble we have at home birds seem less willing to grasp their stems to feast.
The soil has sunk considerably in the wicking beds and paired with the heavy downpours they are a bit sodden. Leaving the taps open to drain them righted the situation, but we’ll need to add more soil in autumn when the summer crops finish. I’m letting my lettuces go to seed as they bolted due to early water logging before we worked out the issue. We have been harvesting baby carrots, thinning them by taking the largest so the smaller ones can fill the gaps.
The unwilling beds have their irrigation operational and are so lush, even better than the wicking beds. We have been feasting on baby zucchini harvested everytime we walk to the garden.
