Tuesday 30 January 2018

Prickly Pear cactus tasty to animals

I bought a Prickly Pear cactus from TradeMe.  In theory, this is supposed to have horrific spines that get stuck into you, and ache away for months on end embedded into your hand or wherever.  In practice, either rabbits or possums like the taste of it's pads.  This makes me wonder if it is even a Prickly Pear cactus.

IMG_20180128_184652
Rabbit?  Possum?

Wednesday 25 October 2017

Sunchokes, corn and garden beds

There's been jerusalem artichokes growing in a garden bed for the past four years or so, but mostly they're given away.  The grass grows over them in the dormant seasons, but they've just started to sprout again.  It's been a goal to dig them up and replant maybe eight or so of the best in a different garden bed, clearing this one out.

2017-10-22 - 01 - Progress - Sunchokes
Uncleared jerusalem artichoke bed
Here's the results of the bed being cleared out.  A full barrow load of jerusalem artichokes.  The problem is that if they're dumped in the compost, or for that matter, anywhere out in the paddock, they'll probably come back.

2017-10-22 - 04 - Progress - Sunchokes
Unwanted sprouting jerusalem artichokes

This bed along with the two more closer towards the camera, were used for garlic last year.  The small patch to the right in front of the freshly cleared and dug bed at the back, was used for yams.  The rest of it was also cleared yesterday, which just leaves the one right at the bottom of the shot to be cleared.

2017-10-22 - 02 - Progress - Sunchokes
Freshly cleared bed
I read about someone else who replants their sunchokes, or jerusalem artichokes, at about half a meter apart or some similar distance.  Eight of the best ones I dug out have been replanted at the West end of this bed.

2017-10-22 - 03 - Progress - Sunchokes
Eight replanted jerusalem artichokes
It took a while to work out what to do with the jerusalem artichokes, and leaving the barrow out in the weather didn't seem very effective.  So an old bit of iron left out in the sun will hopefully do the trick.

2017-10-25 - 01 - Progress - Killing sunchokes
Killing the jerusalem artichokes
The jerusalem artichoke bed was dug out further, and for some reason the idea of planting corn was quite appealing.  While this bed is going to be used for Bloody Butcher corn, another is going to be used for Painted Mountain.

2017-10-24 - 05 - Progress - Corn
Corn seed
As some of the Bloody Butcher seed is quite old, it was sowed quite thickly.  It's easier to thin it out later, than to plant more.

2017-10-24 - 06 - Progress - Corn sowing
Cown sowing
And finally, covered up.

2017-10-24 - 07 - Progress - Corn bed
Corn beds
Next on the agenda are tomatillos, the Painted Mountain corn and brocolli.

Thursday 8 December 2016

Oldest gooseberry bush

I've just been out to check on my oldest surviving gooseberry plant. It's so heavily laden with fruit, that it's flattened out and most of the branches are laying if not curving down to lay on the ground. I need to do something about this, maybe thin out the fruit, or put some netting around it to hold up the branches, as it would be nice to get all that fruit.

Maybe also put bird netting around it. Though I did that last year, and a starling got in and ate all the fruit anyway.  However, that netting was old grape netting and has the odd hole.

I took cuttings from this in the Autumn, none of them survived.  The cuttings I had both from my other gooseberry plants, and received from other kind souls, all lived.   Not sure why that was.

Gooseberry - Invicta
Invicta Gooseberry