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This is a good season for us w.r.t. fruit. At least two of the grape vines (there are four, but they are growing on top of each other) are fruiting prolifically -- sufficiently so that the chickens are no longer hounding us for grapes when we go out to pick them, and the silvereyes haven't managed to destroy the whole crop (as they did last year. Them and the probable rats). The acerola has produced so much fruit that we aren't keeping up with it, although in this case, 'so much' is about a cereal bowl full, we just aren't habituated to scarfing them yet. One of the plums did very well, although much of that crop went to the birds, while the other one has a few not yet ripe fruit on it. Some pruning is required to get the balance between the two sorted. And there have been enough figs that I've been picking one or two a day, and this is the early part of the second crop (the first crop was just a few). Oh, and we got a single, tiny, apple off middlest's apple tree. Too green to eat at present, we have it sitting on a plate to see if it ripens (it fell).
Coming up, the pomegranate has a handful of fruit - about what we got last year, so more effort will have to be made next year to increase nutrients and see whether that helps (this year was just about adding more water). The guava has lots of tiny green lumps, but how much of that becomes useful crop is a bit of a gamble. Several of the citrus trees are likewise covered in dark green globes.
Sadly, the carambole are yet to flower at all, ditto the avocado. And it looks like the promise of persimmons is not to be. There were several out of reach of the chickens earlier in the year, but when I checked on the weekend there is no longer a single fruit visible.
And this year, given that I'll be home a lot, I'm hoping to work on the next stage of the garden, and deal with the areas where the previous attempts have failed. I want to put in another passionfruit, and am wondering whether setting up some kind of trellis in the front garden would be better. Something needs to be done with the dragonfruit, other than just letting it claim land. New papayas need to be sourced, given the previous ones just gave up some time over last year. And I probably have to look at the current reticulation, and work out where we are watering sand (where the apricot went, where the kiwi vines went, where the custard apple went, where one of the unusual ones we were gifted went, next to the trampoline) and how to deal with that. And maybe consider redoing the chicken shelters to see how we can change the way that the garden grows. I'm contemplating chicken tractors again, and this time I might actually get the plan up and running, but it will probably require some significant rearranging, and possibly waiting for the flock to reduce back down to six (which I'm hoping isn't this year. Even the oldest of the current set should survive another year or two)
Coming up, the pomegranate has a handful of fruit - about what we got last year, so more effort will have to be made next year to increase nutrients and see whether that helps (this year was just about adding more water). The guava has lots of tiny green lumps, but how much of that becomes useful crop is a bit of a gamble. Several of the citrus trees are likewise covered in dark green globes.
Sadly, the carambole are yet to flower at all, ditto the avocado. And it looks like the promise of persimmons is not to be. There were several out of reach of the chickens earlier in the year, but when I checked on the weekend there is no longer a single fruit visible.
And this year, given that I'll be home a lot, I'm hoping to work on the next stage of the garden, and deal with the areas where the previous attempts have failed. I want to put in another passionfruit, and am wondering whether setting up some kind of trellis in the front garden would be better. Something needs to be done with the dragonfruit, other than just letting it claim land. New papayas need to be sourced, given the previous ones just gave up some time over last year. And I probably have to look at the current reticulation, and work out where we are watering sand (where the apricot went, where the kiwi vines went, where the custard apple went, where one of the unusual ones we were gifted went, next to the trampoline) and how to deal with that. And maybe consider redoing the chicken shelters to see how we can change the way that the garden grows. I'm contemplating chicken tractors again, and this time I might actually get the plan up and running, but it will probably require some significant rearranging, and possibly waiting for the flock to reduce back down to six (which I'm hoping isn't this year. Even the oldest of the current set should survive another year or two)
