The world is insane, and so is my garden.
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The apple trees that fruited in December and January have now given us a second crop. The pomegranates have kept flowering and fruiting since last November, and are blooming yet again.
We have ripe mulberries, which I only discovered by accident, because who bothers to look at mulberry trees in March unless you are feeding silkworms? Mulberries are one of the first spring fruits here, but this year they are also an autumn crop.
The choko vine looks like it's attempting to cover the entire region by winter, and the Jerusalem artichokes will be marching after them.
When the world tumbles into even more crises than usual, it's reassuring to have fruit trees and perennial veg in the backyard.
This week happens to be pretty close to the anniversary of the Covid-19 lockdown. I remember a relative ringing me the first night, "You can keep us all in tomatoes, cucumbers and lettuce can't you? And eggs?" Well, no. I pointed out that as it was March we were coming to the end of the tomato harvest. I hadn't planted any cucumber vines, nor would cucumber grow here in winter unless I turned the living room into a heated garden with "grow lights".
The garden had about a six lettuces to last 'til October, as I am married to a man who thinks lettuce is rabbit food, except in a curried egg sandwich liberally doused with mayonnaise. The chooks were giving us one to three eggs a day, pretty much perfect for a household of two.
Productive gardens need planning, weeding, feeding and watering. I'd love to say: "Plant this tree or bush now and you'll have fruit all winter". Sadly, all I can offer is: "Plant oranges, mandarins, lemons, Tahitian limes, grapefruit, tangelos, late varieties of apples, winter pears, chestnuts, macadamias, hazelnuts, quinces and just possibly avocados and dwarf red bananas if you have a spot sheltered from the wind and will keep them protected for about five years. Wait four to seven years and you'll have far too much fruit unless your friends are excellent cooks".
MORE JACKIE FRENCH:
And if you are planning on planting your winter desserts now? Buy six advanced rhubarb plants, make sure they are winter bearing varieties and feed them well.
There are a great many veg you can plant in our climate in March: peas, snow peas, broad beans, brussels sprouts and broccoli and true English spinach, early onions, and lots of cabbages of different sizes. Early, small ones may mature by winter, especially the Asian varieties like Bok choi, but mostly the veg you plant now will be the ones that will be ready for harvest in October, not for your dinner in 10 weeks' time. You could even dig up your lawn and plant winter wheat - you'll get 2-3 kilos of grain from about six square metres, but again there'll be no harvest 'til late spring.
My best advice to anyone who urgently wants the security of a vegetable garden to feed them through winter is to plant English spinach, parsley, radishes, watercress and winter lettuces like Cos, Buttercrunch or any of the curly red varieties, plus kale, preferably in a green house. If you don't have a greenhouse, drape clear plastic over tomato stakes.
The most productive winter vegetable garden I know is surrounded by a low wooden fence, about half a metre high, with windows that slide along it.
The glass top heats up the soil faster than in a larger green house, and when you want to water, pick or feed you just slide the window across. You may even manage to get a crop of potatoes before the depths of winter if you plant them now and can give them greenhouse warmth.
We don't have a greenhouse of any kind, but our vegetable garden just now is looking green and verdant. Unfortunately, greenery is weeds apart from the rampant choko and Jerusalem artichokes. Somewhere underneath I can still glimpse a winter crop of perennial leeks, silver beet, several rows of carrots, parsley, spring onions, and parsley.
I became complacent in the dry spring and summer, when no weeds grew and the vegies flourished because I watered them.
Then it rained. The next time I looked out the window the weeds were half as high as I am. Just possibly I'll spend some of this weekend uncovering the veg and giving them a decent feed before the soil gets too cold for them to take up nutrients. I might even pick the crab apples and make crab apple jelly.
But mostly I'll just be grateful for the rain that means our winter bearing fruit trees are laden with fruit. There's be orange juice for breakfast, and apple crumble for dessert. Our garden may be a bit confused by this year's weather, but it fulfils a deep human need, with food growing all around us.
This week I am:
- Grateful for the hours of whipper snipping that has turned what looked like a hay paddock back into lawn;
- Picking kei apples, which look like yellow skinned plums, but aren't. They fruit every summer, sometimes in December but not 'til March this year. They're a South African desert fruit, and like many Aussie natives plants, their flowing and fruit is triggered by a hot dry period followed by rain;
- Not even bothering to pick the finger limes that also bloomed into overproduction when the drought broke and the rain fell;
- Rejoicing in the fragrance of an entire bank of golden ginger lilies;
- Planning an expedition up to the chestnut trees to see how good the harvest may be, and trying to remember why on earth I planted them half a km up the mountain;
- Ignoring the walnut grove. There will be many walnuts, and soon there's be many white cockatoos eating them. If I don't actually see the nuts I won't try yet again to harvest any. The cockatoos always win;
- Extremely glad that the cockatoos are too intent on stealing walnuts to notice the chestnut trees, and that the variety of macadamia by the house is a wild variety, with a shell that is too touch even for cockatoo beaks.
