Return to summer?

From the fag-end of autumn in Europe to the first day of summer in NZ. It doesn’t feel like summer! Everything seems lush & green, as though there’s been a great deal of rain since I’ve been away. But it’s lovely, the walk to work almost like being in the countryside. And the bird song! Wonderful.

The vegetable garden at home, however, such a disappointment. Only the tomatoes seem to have grown. The lettuce, silver beet, peas, zucchini … they all look stunted, struggling, unhappy. The plentiful harvests of last summer may not be repeated this year. But I’ll embark on a programme of determined watering & tender care, and see what happens.

Still, it’s good to be home.

Leaving, on a jet plane

Am at Auckland airport, once again, on my travels. Grazing on an apple & a glass of bubbles as I wait for my flight to be called. Half past ten at night, and the place is busy. Guess none of us will be looking so bright-eyed in twelve hours’ time. I know I won’t! Anyway, a chance to add a few random thoughts …

The garden, now planted up with vegetables for summer. Tomatoes, lettuce, zucchini, peas, silver beet. The same as last year. The reassuring cycle of the seasons. I hope, when I return, to find it looking healthy, if not yet bountiful. And, fingers crossed, none of the blight that affected the tomatoes last year.

And last night, a great Kiwi feed, courtesy of our neighbours … West Coast whitebait. Perhaps the fritter recipe in the Edmonds’ Cookbook is not the most flattering way to treat that expensive delicacy, but that’s how we had them. And they were fine. But I do recall once, in a restaurant, having them tossed in a beaten egg and lightly dusted with flour. That was the best ever, but I didn’t feel confident to try it last night.

Lots more I’ve been meaning to say, but it’s not important, can wait. Except to add, we have eaten again at Caffe Italiano in Cuba St since my last post … disappointing this time. I start to wonder whether it’s a franchise, and about quality control. Think it may be time to find a new favourite cheap-ish eatery.

But for now, I’m looking forward to some eating treats in Hong Kong.

The end of autumn

Wet, wild & revolting. That’s been the weather the past couple of weeks, and it’s still been autumn … officially. But yesterday at least a break in the weather, time to lay pea straw over the largely dormant veggie garden … and to pull out the cauliflowers that never performed. Still have vague hopes for the leeks, however. And there are still carrots, and at least one more feed of silver beet. But winter starts tomorrow … again, officially. A fairly arbitrary distinction. Today, the end of autumn, we had sleet & even snow! Fear the garden is going to be very neglected for the next few months, and fearfully unproductive. But spring’ll come again, and there’ll be all the delights of fresh produce once again. Can’t wait!

Autumn tidy-up

Wasn’t this blog supposed to have been about eating seasonally, eating from the garden, at least in part? That seems to have slipped off the radar a little of late, as we slide towards winter & the garden becomes less & less productive. Pulled out the tomatoes and last two courgette plants on the weekend, along with the last couple of gone-to-seed lettuces. Silver beet & carrots still holding their own, though the masses of silver beet that had me producing spanakopita on a regular basis last year haven’t been a feature this year. Leeks still look like chives, and only one of the cauliflowers I put in, oh, months ago, has even begun to heart up. There’ll be less & less from the garden in the months ahead, sadly, but at least there’ll continue to be fresh herbs. Parsley, sage, rosemary & thyme, oddly enough.

The end of summer

Home again. Where it really does feel like the end of summer … it sounds at all hours as though the cicadas are frenetically playing their violins! But at least fears of the garden drying up during my absence have proved groundless. Indeed, perhaps perversely, there seems to have been a great deal of rain … the lawn is unexpectedly green & lush … the (outdoor) tomatoes & zucchini look a little the worse for wear … though the largest marrow would be a fitting entrant in a harvest festival! … and gnawing pests have been enjoying themselves overly on the silver beet & cauliflower. But the only real casualty has been the indoor tomato plant … dried up and keeled over. Such a shame, but this season the tomatoes do seem to have been jinxed anyway. 

A gardener’s pre-holiday angst

Two more sleeps and I’m on my way. Inevitably, and no matter how well-organised I think I am, no matter how well-organised I plan to be, there’s always a welling of anxieties. As predictable as a pimple on the eve of the school ball! This time, I find, I’m getting especially anxious about leaving the garden. There’s always something happening … a few days ago the last of the neighbour’s pohutukawa’s red stamens fell. Or something to do. The dahlias need constant deheading. The irises need lifting. The roses are coming into flower again. And as for the all-important veggies … Will it rain while I’m away? Should I ask a friend to come & water? I did that a year ago, when I was in Hong Kong. Reports of days of torrential rain in Wellington made me think I needn’t worry. But I was away three weeks, the friend’s squirting with a hose didn’t really do the job, the return to the garden was disheartening. This year, well … if the courgettes expire during my absence I won’t be too upset, have about eaten my fill of courgettes this summer, but the tomatoes are just ripening. Seem to have been nursing them along for MONTHS and it’d be truly annoying to lose the fruit.

 

A friend at work did say, how can you leave Wellington in February? I know what he means. The best summer month. Heard my first cicadas the other day. Long, hot days ahead – with luck. But it’ll be fun to be away. And I’ll be back in time for the start of autumn.

Garden maintenance #2: Turning into my father?

This growing gardening obsession makes me worry I’m turning into my father! I’ve been looking at the hedge on our western boundary & thinking about getting it trimmed, lopped in height by a couple of feet or so. And why would I do this? Oh, to make sure the vegetable garden gets a bit more of the afternoon sun! For years I’ve railed against my father’s war on trees. In Wadestown, he cut back a beautiful magnolia; at Tahuahua he butchered (to my eyes) a grand old rhododendron – in both instances, all to give a bit more light on his veggies. Oh dear, they say we turn into our parents as we age.

Garden maintenance #1

Deciding to eat seasonally does require some sort of commitment to keeping the garden going. So for the past 10 days or so I’ve been working on keeping it productive. New plantings of lettuce and mesclun to keep me going for the rest of the summer and into the autumn. Thinking ahead, plantings of silver beet and cauliflower, and a second lot of carrots. I must get a row of leeks started soon, too. Such a great winter vegetable, but the question is where to squeeze them in in our small garden. The peas are about to come out … maybe  I’ll do that tomorrow morning … they’ve produced well for about 3 weeks, but are just about finished. Tonight was the last night I’ll harvest peas straight from the garden into the pot … I’ve shelled and frozen those that were excess to requirements, but it won’t be the same. However, I don’t think I’ll put the leeks there, maybe where a few excess lettuce are. Ah, decisions!