Gardening, Life at No.22

Pottering around Plot 11 – Autumn

Suzanne

I have always thought of Autumn as one of the most settled of seasons as far as the weather is concerned. I was wrong this year; we have had more extreme weather, storm after storm. As in 80 per cent of our anticipated annual rainfall within 5 months.

There have been plenty of cobwebs about to capture.

Easy to get on with walking or other activities with a raincoat or an umbrella. Gardening is a much different affair. Unless you have plants to be put into the ground with that in mind, some days when less torrential rain was about, we planted silverbeet, more spinach, celery, and leeks. Dwarf beans were still being picked in early April, and then the Squire pulled out the stalks/plant in May.

As the days passed and little input from us, the garden plots looked like the epic spinach war had been declared a week ago. As the snails and slugs had taken over. No big deal regarding the holey spinach as they generously left us enough, as once I have chopped those spinach leaves, we forget that the slugs have visited.

Preparing dinner with what is left of our spinach.

Another way of using less attractive spinach or silverbeet leaves is to make the above salad dressing – this recipe book from a popular cafe in Takaka, Golden Bay, is still my go-to. Not bad, considering it’s over 20 years old.
The culprit

The garden star in May is our broadbeans; even with galeforce winds and torrential rain, they are still standing, and we have grown them on both ends this year. We love to blend the broadbeans with peas, olive oil and garlic, which is so delicious.

We refreshed tired chard plants by cutting the tops back to a 20cm-ish stump. Then, the big old leaves were used to mulch a bed or put small buckets into the soil to keep the worms happy. The stump will hopefully re-sprout and, if we pick it regularly, will supply lots of small, sweet leaves.

Autumn is the time to make compost and to use more solid manure, thanks to chickens and cows, than our usual seaweed liquid connection. Not forgetting the citrus trees.

Distracted by blooms on our lemon tree – a happy scent waffling through our home.
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Published by Suzanne

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26 thoughts on “Pottering around Plot 11 – Autumn”

    1. Not too sure about being cute and I sometimes feel a pang of guilt with eradication so occasionally the snails are directed away from the greens 🙂

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    1. Thanks and yes it took us a while to adjust to the seasons when we spent years housesitting in the Northern Hemisphere. All the seasons were enjoyable for differing reasons.

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  7. I’m afraid I can’t embrace the S&S despite the RHS trying to make us stop classing them as pests. The odd chew I can ignore, but not when they decimate young plants.

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    1. Interesting regarding RHS stance on snails and slugs. I suppose there are the rare varieties and they do have their place just not in our gardens. I definitely wouldn’t use chemicals to get rid of them.

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      1. Nothing to do with rare varieties, we are supposed to accept their place in the natural world. Problem is that not everyone has hedgehogs or frogs or thrushes to keep the population down.

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    1. I tend to go through phrases of being fascinated with cobwebs and your comment made me relook at the lemon blossoms. They seem stronger in structure compared to many other blossoms.

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    1. I think you are busy enough and to be honest I am not sure how long we will carry on with the community garden. Too many people are not interested in putting in the time to oversee the place. Plus, there are long term committee members leaving soon. Not looking positive at the moment.

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  10. It sounds like you managed to make many a meal from your efforts despite the pests. I hope to have a little luck this year. My pests tend to be a bit larger and will eat an entire pepper plant in one chomp. (One and a half down, four and a half left.) enjoy the winding down time! (Canning?)

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