Flying Fertiliser and Luisa Plums

I have a correction to make on my last posting. Trevor tells me that what I saw in the sunflower garden was probably not sparrows but one of a couple of species of finches.  I probably saw a female Goldfinch like the one below.

This image is from an excellent bird identifying site NZ Backyard Birds

The glorious male goldfinch with his distinctive red patches I wouldn't have called a sparrow but the female isn't that different at a distance.   Of course finches are seed eating birds while sparrows tend to go for insects. Thanks Trevor for setting me right about that.

One of the original planners of the garden, Brendon Hoare, recently told Trevor one of the original intentions of the food forest set up was to attract birds.  Their droppings would provide additional fertiliser input to the garden area.  Brendon works on strengthening organic production in NZ through his company Organic Systems that offers to growers and communities growth strategies in the organic and eco sector.

Those of us who are lucky enough to lease a plot at the gardens have to thank Brendon Hoare and Richard Mains for their vision and  work to get this community garden established.

On Sunday as I was about to leave I heard an unusual noise in amongst the trees.  Upon investigation I found Richard harvesting the Luisa plums.

Richard said these plums were discovered in an old established garden in Hamilton and thought the plum may have originally come from Poland.  So this week I set about to find out who the nurseryman was that propagated this plum.  The plum is available in many nurseries around the country but it wasn't until I found a Trade Me entry that I found who that nurseryman was.  

Andy McGrath of McGrath Nurseries. This nursery is a commercial
breeding and supplier of fruit trees but are developing materials for the
home gardener on their site.

Richard told me we have 5 of these trees but most of them have already been stripped by thieves.  Richard was harvesting as many as he could before the thieves or birds got the last of them.  He said they are best eaten when tree ripened but the five he gave me after a couple of days were perfect.

They are the shape and size of a small mango and are perhaps the biggest plums I have seen.  Bite into them and the skin has a tartness, but the yellow flesh is very juicy and sweet.  My 3 year old grandson Beau calls them peaches and that's probably because of their size and juiciness.

They are a plum tree that grows well in our humid Auckland conditions and will thrive in a warm, sheltered, sunny spot.  The soil needs to be organically rich, moisture retentive but good draining.  That explains why they fruit so well in our food forest at the gardens.

It's a self fertile plum but McGrath Nurseries recommend you plant it with a Billington plum to ensure good fruiting.  Billington plums are ready before Christmas and Luisa late January, early February.

Richard was putting the harvest into the garden shed and perhaps there will be some Luisa plums for members of the community to taste on Sunday when we have our next work day.

It's just bean a week

Last Sunday we picked a massive bag of our French beans taking off all the beans we could see.  One week later look at the size of the beans and another big bag of beans.  

In the "Three Sisters"(see previous post) community patch the sunflowers are now drooping their heads, and their seeds are being sought after by the sparrows.

 It may be soon the end of these magnificient blooms but the purple beans climbing up the sunflower stems are still producing well.  These beans are certainly a majestic colour and when young are delicious and sweet to eat raw.

 It's a shame once you cook them they lose that purple.  Someone in their plot has planted purple beans  and I caught them in flower. I wonder if these stay purple when cooked.

When visiting the garden, I always take time out to walk around the other plots to find interesting combinations of colour, foliage and flowers that catch my eye...or it could just be an exquisite example of a vegetable in its prime.

Last week I just had to capture this combination of bulb fennel and cos lettuce...

Of course today one week later, some of the lettuces and fennel have been harvested and it no longer looks perfect.  My niece Jessie who visited the gardens with me last week just couldnt get over how perfect all the vegetables looked - no sign of these lettuces being ravaged by pests.  I told her its all to do with the healthy organic soil and the number of flowers and host plants around the gardens that give a home to beneficial insects that keep the pest numbers down.

Unlike the two strawberry plants I have in our garden this gardener will get to eat some strawberries.  The birds always beat me.  I thought this a great design for growing strawberries and an inventive idea using ping pong balls over sticks to hold up the bird netting.  This stops the netting getting tangled and slipping.

You can learn so much by talking or just observing what other people do in the gardens.