Blueberries in Spring 2015

There are two blueberry plants in the orchard.  There was three, but the third died of.. I guess prior neglect would be the crime if the perpetrator were taken to plant court.  The year before last, the fruit was enjoyed.  But last year, due to laziness, the fruit went missing - most likely because of free ranging chickens.

As far as I can tell, there's not much difference between the two varieties, Powder Blue and Climax.  But they're supposed to be pollinators for each other.

Blueberry var. Powder Blue

Note the pine mulch around them.  Someone swept up the leftover material from the pine cones I used to collect for the coal range, and I took it and scattered it around the blueberry plants.  The theory is that they prefer acid soil, and pine trees are supposed to be much the same.

Blueberry var. Climax

Invicta gooseberry in Spring 2015

This is the sole surviving gooseberry as of the start of Spring.

Gooseberry var. Invicta

And here it is approximately 40 days later, and it's looking pretty good so far.  Last year I was too lazy to cover it with bird netting, and one day the fruit were there and the next they weren't.  Was it the free ranging chickens?  Was it the birds?  Did they just fall off unnoticed?  No idea! An interesting contrast was the Chilean guava, which has delicious fruit, yet nothing ate them.

Gooseberry var. Invicta

I originally planted two. Where did the second one go? I don't know. Maybe the stoats, possums and/or rabbits ate every inch of it.

Californian thistles

The Californians have many things to answer for, and the worst of their crimes are their thistles.  These have root systems underground, you can mow them but they'll grow back.  And you can grub/dig out the roots, but every fragment you leave down there will turn into a new root system.

Flattened californian thistles

People say grub them out, but have they tried?  And if they have, is their ground as stony as the ground in this field can be?  That white clump in the center back of the photo to the top left of the apricot tree, is a giant pile of large (and varying smaller sizes) of rocks.

I'm hesitant to put roundup on the thistles, grubbing them is impractical, and when mown they often grow back from the stubs, so I take the casual grinding approach.  Whenever I'm walking through the paddock and I pass a thistle, I just stand on it and twist the gumboot.  Bonus points if the weather is wet, as then they're 30% more vulnerable to fungal conditions.

While boot grinding isn't covered in the literature (like Lincoln University's page on non-chemical management of californian thistles) I rate it as more effective (at least in theory) than mowing.  When I cut/mow thistles early in the season, they grow back from the stumps.  When I mow thistles later in the season, then they're large and fill the field full of dried thistle foliage that remains for at least a year (try grabbing a handful of grass containing dried thistle..).

One comforting fact about the linked Lincoln University page, is that it gives good argument that the wind dispersed seeds are nothing to worry about.  Which is a good thing, as my neighbours hill (starting beyond the cattle in the photo) is covered in thistles as is the fields beyond it, and come a windy day late summer/autumn, the skies are filled with thistle seeds.