June 29, 2008
· Filed under Garden · Tagged Back yard, fruit trees, strawberries, vegie patch
Being mid-late June, it was time to venture back down to Perry’s Fruit and Nut nursery to collect some bare-rooted trees that were dormant an sitting in their ’sandpit’. We bought a plum, peach and almond.
This is the bare almond. The plum and peach look pretty much the same…
As a special deal, we got 10 strawberry runners for free. We also bought a caper and a blueberry variety that is suited to the Adelaide plains (low frost for setting) that needs a pot as they require acidic soil that is not naturally found in our area.
The strawberry runners have been planted in a narrow ridged bed that has a low brick wall around it.
Now that all of the fruit and nut trees have been planted for now, it’s time to focus on the vegetable patches.
The first bed that has cauliflowers, peas, mint, chinese celery and a daisy is doing ok. The cauliflowers, being very late, have barely grown but the peas are about 5 cm high now.
The second bed has been layered (cardboard, straw, compost, grass and leaves, lime/dolomite, mushroom compost, straw) and is waiting for something to go in it. Then perhaps a third, fourth, maybe fifth bed, maybe a herb spiral…
June 9, 2008
· Filed under Garden · Tagged Back yard, fruit trees, gardening, olive
Only just worked out that our olive tree is a Frantoio. Couldn’t read the label very well so had to do some research.
Here’s what the research says.
Frantoio – Small/Medium fruit. High oil content. Heavy cropper. Ripens mid/late season. Origins in Tuscany, Italy. Often pickled with a nutty flavour.
http://www.baag.com.au/fsg_olives.html
Frantoio (Paragon) olives are small to medium size (2 to 3g) and oval in shape. The olives have a pleasant nutty flavour when pickled. When mature, the fruit are coloured purple-black, but at the preferred harvest time for oil production are green and purple-green. The highly noted oil is of fruity character, highly aromatic and of leading quality.
http://www.oliveaustralia.com.au/About_Olive_Trees/Frantoio/frantoio.html
http://www.australisplants.com.au/olives/varietySelection.htm
June 8, 2008
· Filed under Garden · Tagged apple, apricot, avocado, Back yard, fruit trees, gardening, lemon, lime, olive
In the back yard, we currently have 7 baby fruit trees planted.
We have a Lisbon Lemon (thanks P.L.),
a Tahitian Lime (dwarf graft- from Unley M10)
a Moorpark Apricot for espaliering along the fence (almost lost all its leaves now) from Perry’s,
a Red Fuji Apple (also from Perry’s Fruit and Nut Nursery) that hasn’t lost its leaves,
a Reed Avocado in a mesh and shadecloth protector for during winter (also Perry’s) that should be fairly self-pollinating (or off a plum?!) and produce big, creamy fruit,
a Pink Jerusalem fig that has lost all its leaves and looks like a sorry stick in the ground (from Perry’s- it is deciduous), and an olive that is also very sorry as it cannot stand up straight and ever since we bought it has leaned to the side (Unley M10).
