Coffeehouse.co.nz

The above piece of paper has been attached to our fridge for over a year now. It’s left a few guests chuckling a bit. Especially as up until yesterday it was stuck on the 2011/12 count. But at last we opened our 2012/13 count! The first 2 zuchinni of the season. I’m not sure if it’s fully correct to include the 2012 bit, given where we are in the year. It certainly feels like it’s a bit later than last year we’re getting some, but then we were a bit slack planting the seedlings out.

And the good news continues today. Another to add to the total. (Yes siree folks, that’s a 50% increase in just one day!)

And 2 more starting to swell. Although I’m not 100% sure the experimental tunnel house plant is liking the very hot temperatures in there. But it’s still producing, so we’ll leave it there for now. The shock of eviction might be a bit much for it.

About two days a year we can see the true lie of the land here as all the grass is trimmed to ground level at the same time. For the back “paddock” that usually means some form of hay cutting or baling has been going on.

250 bales await collection, and there would have been more if I hadn’t got impatient with both crap “rural customer service” and extreme quotes and started to cut it with the ride-on. Although it was doing a really good job, it was quite a relief to have someone pull up and say they’d cut, bale and take way what was left. They’re welcome to it!

This time it was the shallots turn to be ripped out of the ground and given some air. It was almost a year to the day since the last lots were lifted (I’m just a bit slow getting this entry done).

So to recap the multi-year history: Planted 5 bulbs the first year and harvested about 16 or so. Replanted 9 of those this season (eating the rest) and harvested 26. Think we’ll reserve 17 this year to plant out around June and eat the rest.

I’ve no idea what the difference has been this year, but some of the bulbs are massive. Onion size at least. Think they might be some of the ones we’ll chow down on, along with the smallest ones and keep the middlers for the garden.

These have pretty much crept up on us this year. First up, the cucumbers. It seems they’re a bit like pancakes. The first one is always a bit deformed!

And then there’s the first actual chillies of the year. Much more exciting!

Wonder what’s next? I’m sure you do too!!

Once again the forecast is for rain in the near future, so I figured it was about time the the garlic joined the onions drying in the last remaining heat. It was very, very pleasing to note that they are a lot bigger than last year’s efforts!

Twenty one bulbs in all, with one fork damaged on harvest, and one a little soft on one side. That might almost last us though most of the year. Maybe. I suspect we’ll be a few short still, especially if we want to replant some of this lot for next year’s batch. Memo to self: A bulb a week with extra for the garden might be a good amount to aim for next year…

After taking up a relatively large amount of real estate for which seems like a very long time, it was finally time to de-onion the onion patch.

We were a bit slack, or a bit green, and didn’t manage the patch particularly well, so about half of the onions had produced a flower stalk that we should have recognised and bent over a lot earlier. All those that had created a nice flower are still “installed” in the garden, drying up a bit, ready for more immediate use in the kitchen. That probably accounts for about half the crop.

Due to the (current) weather report suggesting that we’re in for a bit of rain and drizzle over the next few days, the other half got transferred into the tunnel house, with the anti-bird netting doing a sterling job of acting as a drying rack on the off chance that we need to store them for any length of time.

I suspect, given the rate we normally rattle through a bag of onions, that we’ll use them all pretty quickly anyway, but you never know.

Would I plant them again? I’m not sure. As they’re so cheap to buy most of the time I suspect it’s possibly better use of garden space to plant more interesting things. But I have enjoyed watching them grow, so we’ll see. If there’s a spare plot going, I wouldn’t say no.

Maybe it’s time to try something else!

We’ve had Daphnes planted on the front door step for a while now, but all they seem to do is slowly die. One got so bad we replaced it, but now the remaining two look like this:

So we’ve given up on them in that spot, and trying some Choisya Ternata Sundance, or “Golden Mexican Orange Blossom”. I guess we’ll see how long it takes for these to curl up and die!

Just next door to the cornflowers that featured last month and have been holding your interest ever since since are a big bunch of poppy plants that went in about the same time.

I suspect that the seeds were meant to be broadcast over a much, much larger area than I managed at the time. I guess the upsides of them all growing packed tightly together are a) not a chance of a weed finding a home, and b) they’ve managed to support each other though a very, very blustery nor-wester last night. Albeit with a few less petals this morning…

But we’ve decided that they do look good down the barren wasteland that was the septic tank effluent field, so hopefully we’ll be able to collect enough seeds to extend the colour block a bit further next year.

I have no idea what I managed to get up to with the series of the wildflowers and I’m too lazy to even search for it, but I know that these little gems haven’t yet made an appearance. That’s because I planted them myself! but hopefully these cornflowers will start to invade the disaster that is the current state of the effluent field. as long as they steer clear of the lawn though…

A guy at work was asking us the other day where he should go to get some fireworks for bonfire night. My reply to him was “well, as an owner (if you can be such a thing) of two cats, I’d say don’t!”.

And we didn’t, of course, and neither did any of our neighbours if our unbroken sleep that night. But it seems we couldn’t get away without the bonfire. Not that we had it on the actual day, but as Saturday morning was perfectly still we raced out and set things in motion for a bit of a clean up of the front tree trimmings. With a bit of help from the trusty old petrol can to get things going, it went! I think we even managed to get rid of at least half of the bits and pieces.

The photo is pretty much at the end of the process. I’m not sure it really does justice to the the huge flames that were threatening to set the long grass on fire… And it certainly doesn’t do justice to the huge amount of raw material that was shuttled slowly from the tree line to the waiting flames. I hurt. Again.

A few hours later and we were still left with a big pile of charcoal and ash that took a lot of water to stop flaming up in the stronger wind that crept up a bit later in the day. But at least we got half of the them gone before that. We just need one more day like that. Please!